Synopses & Reviews
Fans of Jerry Apps will delight in his latest novel,
Blue Shadows Farm, which follows the intriguing family story of three generations on a Wisconsin farm.
Silas Starkweather, a Civil War veteran, is drawn to Wisconsin and homesteads 160 acres in Ames County, where he is known as the mysterious farmer forever digging holes. After years of hardship and toil, however, Silas develops a commitment to farming his land and respect for his new community. When Silas’s son Abe inherits Blue Shadows Farm he chooses to keep the land out of reluctant necessity, distilling and distributing “purified corn water” throughout Prohibition and the Great Depression in order to stay solvent. Abe’s daughter, Emma, willingly takes over the farm after her mother’s death. Emma’s love for this place inspires her to open the farm to school-children and families who share her respect for it. As she considers selling the land, Emma is confronted with a difficult question—who, through thick and thin, will care for Blue Shadows Farm as her family has done for over a century? In the midst of a controversy that disrupts the entire community, Emma looks into her family’s past to help her make crucial decisions about the future of its land.
Through the story of the Starkweather family’s changing fortunes, and each generation’s very different relationship with the farm and the land, Blue Shadows Farm is in some ways the narrative of all farmers and the increasingly difficult challenges they face as committed stewards of the land. Finalist, General Fiction, Midwest Book Awards
Review
“In 1955, life on the nation’s traditional small family farms was on a collision course with industrialization and technology. Small cheese factories were closing, combines were replacing the threshing crew, and workhorses were put out to pasture. It also meant that farm families were facing the traumas of the future. Jerry Apps chronicles this dilemma of change through the lives of central Wisconsin farmers who existed by the sweat of their brows and the muscles in their arms. . . . In a Pickle is a story you’ll read with relish and remember forever.”—John Oncken, syndicated agriculture columnist and radio commentator
Review
"Apps adeptly combines diligent scholarship with fascinating anecdotes, vividly portraying brewmasters, beer barons, saloonkeepers, and corporate raiders. All this plus color reproductions of popular beer labels and a detailed recipe for home brew."Wisconsin Magazine of History
Review
'\"In a highly readable style Apps links together ethnic influence, agriculture, geography, natural resources, meteorology, changing technology, and transportation to explore some of the mystique, romance and folklore associated with beer from antiquity to the present day in Wisconsin.\"The Brewers Bulletin'
Review
“In a Pickle tells this poignant story of change, family, and heartache in a nostalgic, yet unforgettable way.”—Oscar Mireles, editor of I Didn’t Know There Were Latinos in Wisconsin
Review
“Deceptively simple, deceptively rural, Cranberry Red raises tremendous social and moral questions in the context of a good story.”—Maryo Gard Ewell, Colorado Council on the Arts
Review
“Jerry Apps unravels a family secret that arcs across three generations and delivers a surprising answer for one descendant.”—Philip Hasheider, contributing author to Seasons on the Farm
Review
“Jerry Apps weaves a good tale through three generations of family life, strife, and the fabric of the rural landscape that holds them together.”—David L. Sperling, editor, Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine
Review
“Cranberry Red sparkles with warm and vivid characters.”—Dennis Boyer, Eagletree Farm
Review
“Deceptively simple, deceptively rural, Cranberry Red raises tremendous social and moral questions in the context of a good story.”—Maryo Gard Ewell, Colorado Council on the Arts
Review
“The fourth title in Apps’ Ames County, Wis., series offers a feel-good slice of 21st-century life in smalltown U.S.A. . . . [A] satisfying outside-the-city-limits tale.”—Publishers Weekly
Review
"Apps approaches his familiar themes (honor, the importance of community, the increasing threat to traditional farming) from a new angle, focusing on the issue of genetic modification and its impact on an entire way of life. As usual, he creates compelling characters and places them in a vividly realized setting."—Booklist
Review
andquot;Breweries of Wisconsin is a tour down the memory lane of beer.andquot; andmdash;Midwest Beer Notes
Synopsis
The fourth novel in Jerry Apps’s Ames County series, Cranberry Red brings the story into the present, portraying the challenges of agriculture in the twenty-first century.
As the novel opens, Ben Wesley has lost his job as agricultural agent for Ames County. He is soon hired as a research application specialist for Osborne University, a for-profit institution that has developed “Cranberry Red,” a new chemical that promises not only to improve cranberry crop yields but also to endow the fruits with the power to prevent heart disease, reduce brain damage from strokes, and ward off Alzheimer’s disease. Ben must promote the new product to cranberry growers in Ames County and beyond, but he worries whether the promised results are credible. Was Cranberry Red rushed to market?
When the chemical does all that the university claims it will do, Ben is relieved . . . until disturbing side effects emerge. Can he criticize Cranberry Red and safeguard farmers and consumers without losing his job, or will Ben’s honesty get him fired while his community continues to get sicker?
Finalist, General Fiction, Midwest Book Awards
Synopsis
The fourth novel in Jerry Apps s Ames County series, Cranberry Red brings the story into the present, portraying the challenges of agriculture in the twenty-first century.
As the novel opens, Ben Wesley has lost his job as agricultural agent for Ames County. He is soon hired as a research application specialist for Osborne University, a for-profit institution that has developed Cranberry Red, a new chemical that promises not only to improve cranberry crop yields but also to endow the fruits with the power to prevent heart disease, reduce brain damage from strokes, and ward off Alzheimer s disease. Ben must promote the new product to cranberry growers in Ames County and beyond, but he worries whether the promised results are credible. Was Cranberry Red rushed to market?
When the chemical does all that the university claims it will do, Ben is relieved . . . until disturbing side effects emerge. Can he criticize Cranberry Red and safeguard farmers and consumers without losing his job, or will Ben s honesty get him fired while his community continues to get sicker?
Finalist, General Fiction, Midwest Book Awards
"
Synopsis
The story of the Dairy Stateandrsquo;s other major industryandmdash;beer!and#160; From the immigrants who started brewing here during territorial days to the modern industrial giants, this is the history, the folklore, the architecture, the advertising, and the characters that made Wisconsin the nationandrsquo;s brewing leader. Updated with the latest trends on the Wisconsin brewing scene.
and#160;andquot;Apps adeptly combines diligent scholarship with fascinating anecdotes, vividly portraying brewmasters, beer barons, saloonkeepers, and corporate raiders. All this plus color reproductions of popular beer labels and a detailed recipe for home brew.andquot;andmdash;Wisconsin Magazine of History
andquot;In a highly readable style Apps links together ethnic influence, agriculture, geography, natural resources, meteorology, changing technology, and transportation to explore some of the mystique, romance and folklore associated with beer from antiquity to the present day in Wisconsin.andquot;andmdash;The Brewers Bulletin
About the Author
Jerry Apps is the author of more than thirty-five books on Wisconsin and U.S. history. His writing has appeared in such publications as The Journal of American History, Wisconsin Trails, and the Wisconsin Magazine of History, and he is a regular columnist for Wisconsin Guide. He is especially known for his histories of rural and country life.and#160; Apps has won numerous awards for his writing from the Wisconsin Library Association, theand#160; Council for WisconsinWriters, the Robert F. Gard Foundation, the Upper Midwest Booksellers Association, and the Wisconsin Historical Society. In 2001 he received the Barnes and Noble Pride of Wisconsin Award for Excellence in the Field of Regional Literature. He divides his time between his home in Madison and his farm, Roshara, near Wild Rose, Wisconsin.
Table of Contents
Prologue—November 2000
Part 1
1. Ambush—March 1865
2. New Orleans Hospital—March 1865
3. Limited Duty—April 1865
Part 2
4. Nature Hike—October 2000
5. Sophia—May 1866
6. Accident—May 1866
7. Cabin Building—May 1866
8. Olaf Hanson—May 1866
9. Sophia's Garden—May 1866
10. Attack—October 1866
11. Gardening—October 2000
Part 3
12. School Board Meeting—October 2000
13. Memories—October 2000
14. Snowstorm—December 1866
15. Wolfgang and Amelia—December 1866
16. Housekeeper—December 1866
17. Kitchen Stove—January 1867
18. Opportunity—October 2000
Part 4
19. William Steele—October 2
20. Blue Shadows—February 1867
21. Mixed Thoughts—May 1867
22. Wedding—July 1867
23. New Baby—February 15, 1868
24. Elsa—April 1872
25. Increase Joseph—Summer 1872
26. Going Home—August 1872
27 Modern Nature Educators, Inc.—November 2000
Part 5
28. Modern Nature Educators II—November 2000
29. Greed—Summer 1874
30. Borrowed Hay Mower—Summer 1874
31. Tornado—August 1875
32. Silas and the Arrowheads—Summer 1876
33. Kate Dugan—November 2000
Part 6
34. Hiking Emma's Farm—November 2000
35. Abe and the Kittens—May 1880
36. Quilting Bee—November 1885
37. School Days—October 1886
38. Christmas Program—December 1886
39. Picnic—July 4, 1895
40. Skinny-Dipping—August 1900
41. Abe Farming—May 1901
42. Ole Brothers Circus—July 1902
43. New House and Barn—Spring 1903
44. End of an Era—1905
45. Gravel Pit—1906
46. Merrifield Visits the Farm—November 2000
Part 7
47. How Dry I Am—1919
48. What Now?—Summer 1919
49. Visitors—Summer 1920
50. Purified Corn Water—Summer 1920
51. Living High on the Hog—Summer 1922
52. Sorrow-Joy-Sorrow—1925
53. Depression, Then War—Summer 1932
54. School Board Decision—November 2000
Part 8
55. Threshing Days—August 1945
56. Postwar—August 1945
57. Jim Lockwell—August 1946
58. Fishing—August 1947
59. New Year's Eve—December 31, 1949
Part 9
60. Green Growing Farms—Summer 1960
61. Holding On—June 1980
62. Longtime Relationship—1986
63. Offer—November 2000
64. Secrets—November 2000
Epilogue
Suggested Reading