Overview

A THOUGHT-PROVOKING TALE OF SURVIVAL, MORAL RECKONING AND THE MAKING OF HOME IN A WILD LAND THE YEAR IS 1837. When widow Louisa Evans, with no belongings or purpose, joins her sister and brother-in-law on a 700-mile arduous trek by wagon train from Pennsylvania, she hopes for a fresh start. Their destination is the Black Hawk Purchase, a wild, unsettled expanse along the Mississippi, soon to be called Iowa. AND THE JOURNEY WEST IS ONLY THE BEGINNING . . . WHEN TRAGEDY STRIKES, Louisa and her brother-in-law, Isaac, must build a farm alone on virgin land, enduring backbreaking labor, shared grief, and impossible moral choices. Through her unflinching journal, Louisa records each trial in a voice both lyrical and candid, a widow's quiet passage from invisibility toward self-possession.

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Reviews

""This is an extraordinary piece of writing, so beautifully done and so moving. I am a man born in the 20th century, what would I know of a woman in the early 19th century-a farm woman, and I am a city boy? But, I totally feel Louisa in my bones."" Bill Arthur, journalist and author of Fearrington: Creating an English-Style Village in the Carolina Countryside ""Truly gripping and readable. And as any good historical novel does, Sweet Fields Beyond allows the reader to learn factual details, and in the process, to enjoy a rich story well told."" Susan Ketchin, editor and author of The Christ-Haunted Landscape: Faith and Doubt in Southern Fiction ""Nancy nailed it! I loved the story, her use of language, the characters ... I really do miss them all, now that I am through. I will have this story, and Louisa, with me for a long time."" Ruth Decker Steen, Beta Reader, Chapel Hill, North Carolina ""Once I started, I couldn't stop reading. I thought about the characters the whole day. I even had a dream about them!"" Carol W. Runyan, Professor Emerita, Gillings School of Global Public Health University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

Author Information

NANCY JOHNSTON HALL, a medical journalist with a special interest in the history of medicine, was inspired to write a fictionalized version of her own ancestors' stories who were among the first settlers in the Blackhawk Territory of (now) southeastern lowa. She carefully researched period customs, language, medicine and culture to ensure historical authenticity, drawing from women's journals, original documents, lowa frontier records, and an evocative letter from her great-great-grandmother, passed down through the generations. She lives with her husband, deep in a woods near Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

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