French Letters

Tierra Texas is a town like any other small American town in 1944 -- caught up in the war, boys in the military, men and friends gone to the city to work in the airplane factories, everyone wishing it was over and life would go back to what it was before. Everyone except Poppy Sullivan, who used his perch as owner of the local newspaper to know every secret -- who had some hidden tires, extra ration stamps, a stash of gasoline, cattle hidden from the government buyers. It was a town where everyone knew everyone's business. So, when the Thursday before Easter an announcement was posted on the post office bulletin board that Poppy's daughter Virginia had eloped with her boyfriend, Captain Hastings, over Thanksgiving, the whole town was surprised, no one more than Virginia herself, who knew nothing about it. Virginia's War is a funny and wistful view of a simpler time where the worst of citizens took care of poor people and the best of citizens kept up a healthy trade in black market ration coupons, where boys played at soldiers and women wanted to have more of a say in their own lives. It is a finalist in 2009 for Best Novel of the South and for Best Historical Fiction by the Military Writers Society of America.