Richard Shelton immerses us in the hardscrabble lives of his Boise, Idaho, clan during the 1930s and '40s. Using a framework of journals, road trips, and artful storytelling, Shelton traces three generations of women. This is an epic tale of Steinbeckian proportions, but it is not fiction. This is memoir in its finest tradition, illuminating today's cultural chasm between the haves and have-nots.