Like a Tree [Hardcover]

It was 1935, the sixth year of the Great Depression. Most of the population was living on faith, hope, and denial. ??Still, it was not a bad year to be sixteeen--if you were white, middle-class, Protestant, and lucky??enough to be living in Atlanta. Like a Tree is the story of the Krueger family and how they coped and conquered through the??spirit-breaking?? years of the??nineteen-thirties. In a larger context, Like a Tree is about the South's white liberal minority that worked??quietly and largely underground , fighting prejudice, segregation, and ignorance to emancipate future generations. Early revewers have called this book?? touching, ?? absorbing, powerful, important, original, richly textured. ??It is a testament to perseverance,??love, good will, and the fortitude of ordinary human beings.???? In Like a Tree, Author Calvin Kytle tells a compelling story of a family struggling to find itself in depression-time Atlanta. Like the family itself, the city and region is also seeking its own sociological identity. Kytle???s well-drawn characters are real and appealing. His easy style makes for entertaining reading. It???s a splendid , heart-warming look at a simpler time in the Deep South. In reading Like a Tree I felt I was reliving my own boyhood in Atlanta. A most enjoyable book. ???Ernie Harwell, Broadcaster for the Baseball Hall of Fame
At 87, Calvin Kytle has jumped from the nonfiction shelf to the fiction shelf and has landed as gracefully as a gymnist. His remarkable first novel tells the story, from small town to city, of Douglas Krueger, painfully trapped between his uncommon moral alertness and a segregationist, early 20th century Georgia that has no place for its exercise. With a sharp eye for detail, a brisk narrative and an understanding born of intimacy with the times and the region, Kytle has humanized history with a rich cast of compelling characters. Even the walk-ons come and go full-fleshed. ???Tom Teepen, writer for Cox Newspapersl3æ