Book Synopsis

For readers of Jeannette Walls and Barbara Kingsolver, in this love story set in rural Appalachia during the Vietnam War, a young couple is torn apart by both global conflict and their families' ancient feud

In late 1960s Appalachia, many things loom darkly over June Branham: the Vietnam War is dividing the country, and a strip mine is eating away the mountain at the head of the holler where she lives, threatening the natural landscape and the only way of life she has ever known. While still in high school, June has fallen in love. She is pregnant, and the father may be Ellis Akers. Ellis is the son of Solomon, a mortal enemy of June's stepfather, Isom. The feud is so old it fuels two vengeful men with the power of long animosity between rival families.

June's brother, Tom, leaves to enlist in the war, and so does Ellis. Suddenly, June is on her own, at sixteen with a newborn, and is a mother unable to protect her daughter from the wrath of Isom. Without warning, her baby is kidnapped. Guided by her love for the generations of women before her, but now desperately alone, June must carefully navigate the search for her child alongside family and strangers in a wild and disappearing landscape.

In the Fields of the Fatherless Children is a powerful story of love and perseverance, masterfully told by a writer of exquisite care who knows intimately the rural people of this time and place.

Review Quotes

"Vivid, atmospheric storytelling, steeped in regional traditions." --Kirkus Reviews

"Steele conjures a stark sense of place, depicting the strip-mined landscape . . . [A] ravishing story." ⁠--Publishers Weekly

"Here is a novel both compelling and meditative, both tender and gritty, and wholly remarkable for the way it conjures a place and time brought to life with vivid sensory details, raw emotion, and complexity. Pamela Steele is a wonderful writer who allows us to luxuriate in precise language and gives us characters we will long cherish. I loved every page of this lovely novel." --Silas House, author of Southernmost

"Among the ranks of contemporary writers, there remain some who know how to name--in the old ways--the confounding world around us. Pamela Steele is one such writer. She has listened closely to the voices most have forgotten. She has looked hard and long at the graceful, violent homeplace of her people. Her words unfurl like poems, delivered in dreams and visions and communions with the dead. In The Fields of Fatherless Children offers the reader a tale of survival, a geography of wounds, a multi-generational cartography of how to bear our scars and carry on." --Glenn Taylor, author of The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart

"Pamela Steele is a masterful storyteller, at home on the shelves of the best contemporary Appalachian literature. If hope is a thing with feathers, its human embodiment is her heroine June, unstoppable in her quest to right a devastating wrong and make herself whole again. In the Fields of Fatherless Children is a page-turner, barreling forward with urgency while also inviting the reader to pause and savor the powerful moments that reveal the depths of human resilience." --Erin Keane, CCO at Salon and author of Runaway: Notes on the Myths That Made Me

"In the Fields of Fatherless Children is full of drama and suspense, all of it happening in the most beautifully drawn picture of the West Virginia mountains in the turbulent Vietnam war days you could ever hope for. The voices are sharp and true, and Steele moves us amongst them with a hand as steady and gentle as a funeral home usher's. This one was over before I was ready; sad for it to end, grateful for its existence." --Robert Gipe, author of Trampoline

About the Author

PAMELA STEELE holds an MFA in Poetry from Spalding University. Her previous books are Paper Bird: Poems and Greasewood Creek. She has been awarded residencies and fellowships by the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Woodside, California; the Hindman Settlement School Oak Ledge, in Knott County, Kentucky; the Jentel Artist Residency in Banner, Wyoming; and Fishtrap's Gathering of Writers in Joseph, Oregon. She lives on a ranch in the high desert of Eastern Oregon.