Fans of Nancy E. Turner’s 2001 Willa Cather Award finalist These Is My Words, the fictionalized diary of a young pioneer woman in the perilous late 19th-century Southwest, may be disappointed by the author's follow-up offering. Unlike the strong Sarah Agnes Prine who stood up to all the challenges she faced, the meeker Philadelphia “Frosty” Summers buckles under the small-mindedness of her family and the rest of the inhabitants of Sabine, Texas. She goes along with a group of kids who set fire to the “Nigra” church and keeps quiet when she learns that the church wasn’t empty of parishioners. When she finally does take the initiative and moves to Southern California to work in a factory for the WWII war effort, she falls in love with a Navajo Indian Marine radio operator, only to put their relationship, not to mention their lives, in jeopardy when she brings him home to meet her family.
Sabine, Texas, during the mid-20th century is a small, Southern Bible-belt town full of racial bigotry, poverty, ignorance, and war-hungry men. Frosty’s mother is a religious fanatic to the extreme, and her daughter lives in fear throughout her childhood. It’s hard to imagine why Frosty would return to Sabine knowing what she knows about her mother, the majority of the townspeople and the incident at the church. But even a bad family and hometown is better than none at all, and Frosty, always hopeful for something better, perhaps foolishly believes it is possible for people to change.
So readers who rallied beSabine, Texas, during the mid-20th century is a small, Southern Bible-belt town full of racial bigotry, poverty, ignorance, and war-hungry men. Frosty’s mother is a religious fanatic to the extreme, and her daughter lives in fear throughout her childhood. It’s hard to imagine why Frosty would return to Sabine knowing what she knows about her mother, the majority of the townspeople and the incident at the church. But even a bad family and hometown is better than none at all, and Frosty, always hopeful for something better, perhaps foolishly believes it is possible for people to change.