About This Book
Tom Northway, a man of size, now reached the sizable age of ninety, celebrates his birthday on the family farm, Western Reserve, Ohio, where he lives alone following retirement from dentistry and the loss of his wife. It is a day to live, to go about the chores with his three dogs and three goats following him, to 'drink cider with his Amish neighbors and friends, to receive birthday greetings from his grandson and namesake, a scarf from his wife. It is a day to remember, parents and friends gone along with his wife Mattie. There is a shadow, however, for he knows that his son Ben is coming to ask him to move back to the city; at the close it is dispelled when Ben acknowledges his father's love for the home place....Marshall Terry (Old Liberty -- 1961) sets down in a low key, with consistency and constancy that does not reach for effects, a simple, modest life. One is left with the sense that perhaps it has been a little too simple to hold the reader's attentiveness.
