“Millions of rural southerners were severed from the land and driven by poverty and the dream of a better life to crowded and violent slums in wartime Chicago and Detroit. Gertie Nevels is a tragic heroine of this diaspora, fighting to preserve her family and her sense of herself in the face of the dehumanizing demands of ‘modernization.’You will never forget her.”—Kathy, Annie Bloom’s Books, Portland (From Annie Bloom’s “Great Under-appreciated Books” series. The store is offering 10 percent off all titles in the series.)