As All My Fathers Were

Brothers Richard and Seth Barrett are devoted to running the family ranch on Nebraska's Platte River, and they plan to do so for the rest of their lives. But their mother's will requires them to travel by horse and canoe along the river to understand why their maternal grandfather homesteaded the ranch three generations earlier. From her grave, their mother also commands them to observe the harm that industrial farming has done to the land, air, and water.

The Barrett brothers' journey is not to be a smooth one. A ninety-year-old bachelor farmer with a game plan of his own threatens to disrupt and delay the will's mandatory expedition. A neighbor rancher, using a gullible hometown sheriff and a corrupt local politician, seeks to thwart their plans and seize the property. In this turbulent novel, the Platte River—a mile wide and an inch deep—becomes its own character and lives up to its legend of being too thick to drink and too thin to plow.