A family you won't forget ...
Infused with warmth, heart and hope ...
Glazed with the sorrow of a devastating truth.
It's December 1960, and a cold wind is blowing a rare white Christmas toward the Baker farm in South Georgia. Joe Baker, an intense young man hell-bent on achievement and responsibility, finds himself torn between his own desire and ambition and loyalty and responsibility to his family. The oldest of six children, Joe can be counted on to make all the right moves, but what happens when his instincts fail him?
Plowed Fields is a family saga, played out between the turbulent years of 1960 and 1970. Besides Joe, the story features a cast of characters searching for a place to belong as they confront the hardships of their time.
The Baker family is anchored by patriarch Sam, whose pirate's appearance disguises a gentle giant of goodness, and his son, Matt, who is capable of strength and force when necessary but unafraid of tenderness when the moment requires a softer touch. Matt's wife is Caroline, a practical woman whose pride occasionally gets the best of her Christian values.
Plowed Fields also features Lucas and Beauty Bartholomew, a black man and woman struggling to build a better life for their family; Bobby Taylor, the epitome of a racist Southerner and then some; and Paul Berrien, a banker turned sheriff who has a shadow hanging over his aristocratic birthright.
Framed within that white Christmas, the Baker family seems poised on the brink of a grand experience. As the decade unfolds, they move from the tobacco field to the battlefield, from Main Street to city lights, from the church doors to the gates of Hell. They battle drought, fire and other hardships, until long-simmering animosity unleashes the unthinkable and leaves them aching to understand its shattering consequences.
Beautifully written, slow-burning and haunting, Plowed Fields is a mesmerizing saga of people coming together and falling apart, relying on God and losing faith, and pushing forward and fighting back in times of crisis.
Jim Barber grew up working on his uncles' farms in South Georgia while pursuing his dream to become a newspaper reporter. His first job came at age sixteen, covering sports for his county newspaper. Jim spent the bulk of his news career with United Press International before a short stint with the New York Daily News led him to transfer to the world of corporate journalism and a twenty-five-year career with one of the nation's largest utilities. A state and national award-winning writer, he previously co-edited three books. Jim and his wife, Becky, live in Atlanta near Stone Mountain, which he climbs faithfully almost every day. They have three grown daughters, one son-in-law (soon to be two) and three grand dogs. Visit the author's website at www.jimbarber.me
