Where the Heart Was : A Novel

It is the depths of the Depression. In the words of President Franklin Roosevelt, 'One third of the country was ill-housed, ill-clothed, and ill-fed'.

Young Bennie Todd and his family - forced to live in an unheated, sparsely furnished apartment in Waubonsee - are no exception.

Bennie, sickly and always hungry, longs for the place where he was born - the family farm on the Wisconsin Cut-Over.

When mysterious Uncle Newt arrives from Alaska and makes the move back possible, Bennie's world enlarges, encompassing the swamps and woodlands of north-western Wisconsin and the legends surrounding them, the story of his Sioux great-grandmother, and eventually the tender passion of his first and lasting love.

In part an autobiography of his Depression childhood, and a multigenerational family saga, Boyer brings to life the mood, the desperation of those years, and re-creates memorable moments in our common history - truly a book for our time.