In Earthen Vessels

He was only fourteen in 1950, but he had to take on manhood early. The depression that the rest of America had clambered out of a decade earlier still hung on in rural Oklahoma. A lot of people had solved that problem, in a way, by taking to the road west, lured by the golden promise of a better land; but those who were too poor or too proud or too stubborn to leave held on. Those who were poor, proud, and stubborn, like his family, managed to build a life out of corn bread, poke greens, labor and hope. It made them a special breed. But Jody didn’t know that. Jody had to grow up in a hurry. His maturation fell into the hands of some damaged human vessels, who had to show him the difference between what's legal and what's right, between adulthood and manhood, between appetite and love, between respectability and integrity.