Description: A paean to the vanishing family cotton farm
Brief description: Gerard Helferich, Jackson, Mississippi, is author of four best-selling, award-winning books, including Theodore Roosevelt and the Assassin: Madness, Vengeance, and the Campaign of 1912; Stone of Kings: In Search of the Lost Jade of the Maya; and Humboldt's Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Latin American Journey That Changed the Way We See the World. Before turning to writing in 2002, he worked as an editor and publisher for twenty-five years in various publishing houses in New York. A member of the National Book Critics Circle, he publishes book reviews in the Wall Street Journal.
Review Quotes: Weather, weather, weather--it's pretty much all about the weather when you're a cotton planter in the Mississippi Delta. That's the area writer and editor Helferich calls home, and for a year he dogged one particular cotton planter, Zack Killebrew. He looked over Killebrew's shoulder--well, stood at his side--during an entire growing season, from spring to spring again, and got down on paper all the details of the hard life anyone interested in raising cotton is agreeing to take on. Interesting facts are the foundation of Helferich's riveting and ironically inspiring account: since colonial days, economic, social, and political life in the Delta has been tightly wrapped up in the cotton industry, and eighty percent of Mississippi's cotton is still grown there. Killebrew has been involved in it for thirty years, and not only his dedication but also his gut wisdom about the cycles of nature are to be marveled at. The history of cotton cultivation, the tractor as a farm implement, and sharecropping are all topics explored for the grateful reader.-- "Booklist"