Under the Apple Tree: A Novel of the Home Front

Imagine a past you must have known, even if you weren't there. Birney, Illinois. Population 4,742 -- Moose and Odd Fellows -- Welcome! It is December 7,1941. Ten year-old Artie Garber is our guide. His brother Roy is the hero and Roy's girl Shirley is the love interest. Artie's mother and father are midwestern parents of the best kind. Roy goes to war; Artie is charged with keeping an eye on Shirley. He and his friends watch the skies for German planes, and the streets for spies. Shirley falls for another guy. Artie tries to intervene, and understand. Roy comes home from the war. Life is no longer a small-town basketball game. It is a simple story (perhaps) of awakening and loss and growth. The scenes, the sounds and images, the ambiance of Birney, are at once lost in time and with us today, over 50 years later, for here is a nearly perfect work of art.