Through a glass, darkly

Hard times and continuing setbacks are the two constants in the second installment of Miller's Southern trilogy, which takes young Janson Sanders and his bride, Elise Whitley, forward into the struggles of the Depression. The story opens with Elise pregnant and cast out by her wealthy family for marrying the hot-blooded Sanders, who is half Cherokee. Janson gets a job working in a mill near the small town where he grew up, but his efforts to get ahead come to naught when a bank run costs him his savings; the Depression takes a double toll when Elise's father commits suicide after being ruined. Janson's attempts to find a home for his family prove equally problematic, partly because of smalltown bigotry, but mostly because Buddy Eason, the bullying grandson of the mill owner, has his eyes on Janson's wife. Janson turns to sharecropping to make a living, but his ongoing feud with Eason shifts into high gear when Janson is accused of a murder engineered by Buddy and his friends. Miller has a sympathetic feel for the struggles of rural life in the South during this period, and she creates well-drawn, memorable characters, although the constant misfortunes she heaps on the Sanders family become excessive as the book progresses. The final chapters find Janson back working in the mill as his young son, Henry, begins to take center stage, and the author closes with a fitting ending for Buddy Eason. Miller spins an intriguing web of intertwined tales; those who enjoy well-crafted popular fiction set in this era and locale have much to look forward to as the Sanders family enters the war years.