From the author of The Whisper of the River and Epiphany.

In this coming-of-age story, Porter Osbourne Jr. is a precocious, sensitive, and rambunctious boy trying to make it through adolescence during the Depression. On a red-clay farm in Georgia, he learns all there is to know about cotton-chopping, hog-killing, watermelon-thumping, and mule-handling. School provides a quick course in practical joking, schoolboy crushes, athletic glory, and clandestine sex. But it is Porter’s family— his genteel, patient mother, his swarm of cousins, his snuff-dipping grandmother, and, most of all, his beloved though flawed father—who teaches Porter the painful truths about growing up strong enough to run with the horsemen.

"The writing is elegant, reflective, and amused. Mr. Sams is a storyteller sure of his audience . . . gifted with perfect timing."—The New York Times Book Review

"Remarkable both for its humor and its sustained and detailed picture of a mischievous Southern farmboy’s life during the Great Depression."—The Washington Post