Blue Shadows Farm: A Novel

ISBN: 0299232506

Author: Apps, Jerry

Condition: New

Fans of Jerry Apps will delight in his latest novel, Blue Shadows Farm, which follows the intriguing family story of three generations on a Wisconsin farm.Silas Starkweather, a Civil War veteran, is drawn to Wisconsin and homesteads 160 acres in Ames County, where he is known as the mysterious farmer forever digging holes. After years of hardship and toil, however, Silas develops a commitment to farming his land and respect for his new community. When Silass son Abe inherits Blue Shadows Farm he chooses to keep the land out of reluctant necessity, distilling and distributing purified corn water throughout Prohibition and the Great Depression in order to stay solvent. Abes daughter, Emma, willingly takes over the farm after her mothers death. Emmas love for this place inspires her to open the farm to school-children and families who share her respect for it. As she considers selling the land, Emma is confronted with a difficult question-who, through thick and thin, will care for Blue Shadows Farm as her family has done for over a century? In the midst of a controversy that disrupts the entire community, Emma looks into her familys past to help her make crucial decisions about the future of its land.Through the story of the Starkweather familys changing fortunes, and each generations very different relationship with the farm and the land, Blue Shadows Farm is in some ways the narrative of all farmers and the increasingly difficult challenges they face as committed stewards of the land.Finalist, General Fiction, Midwest Book Awards