In 1934, Ella Barron struggles to keep her Texas boardinghouse afloat despite the financial hardships her neighbors are facing, which leads her to rent a room to the soft-spoken David Rainwater, who shows Ella and her ten-year-old son the true meaning of trust and compassion.

"An impeccably rendered depiction of the strains of adolescence. . . . Broadly relevant to our present cultural moment . . . This is a beautifully written, humane, and extremely compelling book." - Emily St. John Mandel, Book of the Month pick "Rapturous. . . . Like a deft Texas two-step, Parssinen's work swings through local terror and youthful awakening." - Time Out New York "Blend H.G. Bissinger's "Friday Night Lights" and Arthur Miller's "The...

One hundred fifty years of Roses' Tolivers, Warwicks, and DuMonts! We begin in the antebellum South on Plantation Alley in South Carolina, where Silas Toliver, deprived of his inheritance, joins up with his best friend Jeremy Warwick to plan a wagon train expedition to the 'black waxy' promise of a new territory called Texas. Slavery, westward expansion, abolition, the Civil War, love, marriage, friendship, tragedy and triumph-all the ingredients...