Sharon Rolens, raised in rural Illimois, is a professional muscian living in Denver, Colorado and author of published short stories and poetry, Worthy's Town is her first novel.
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In January 1925 not one man among the five hundred citizens of Old Kane, Illinois, was without a job unless he wanted to be. Some found work at the local ball bat factory or grain elevator, and some worked at the cartridge factory in Alton or the oil refinery in Wood River. Others managed to engage themselves profitably in enterprises of their own ingenuity: raising night crawlers, breeding and selling raccoons for pets or pelts, playing musical instruments for round and square dances. Booze, stilled to perfection, continued to bring a good price; the favorite carrying place was the heel of a shoe, or a flask formfitted to a lady's thigh. Dairy farmers and feed growers, getting along tolerably since the prosperous war years ended, filled out the remainder of Greene County's countryside. Outsiders looking at Old Kane might have thought life moved at a snail's pace, but to the people who lived there, events came one after the other with hardly a breath between. Given the choice of living any place in the country, each man, woman and child would have chosen to stay in Old Kane. Of all the farmers around Old Kane, Worthy Giberson was one of the most respected—known throughout the county for his honesty and hard work. Not once did he sell a cow suspected of coming down with the mad staggers, nor did he ever trade a horse that was showing signs of being stringhalted. Worthy always gave a fair deal and expected the same in return. He raised his boy, Cappy, in that tradition, without regret.
