Adams Needle
When the Klan leaves, no one thinks to takes the cross down. A Jewish couple, Sarah and George Klein, buy their dream farm nearby but fail to notice the cross until it’s too late.
Book Description:
Incest, murder, adultery, neo-nazi white supremacists, brilliant professors, green agriculture, corrupt police, corrupt preachers, ugly right wing conservatism, gross ignorance, wild women, liquor end up rednecks -Decades ago the Ku Klux Klan placed a large cross on an Ozark cliff known as Adam’s Needle. When the Klan leaves, no one thinks to takes the cross down. A Jewish couple, Sarah and George Klein, buy their dream farm nearby but fail to notice the cross until it’s too late. Sarah gets a niggling feeling, but George calms her fears by reminding her that the close town of Pecan Grove is a nice Christian community filled with good, kind people. Little does he know that an unscrupulous preacher has arrived, or that he and Sarah’s very lives may well depend on the cleverness of an abused neighbor child.
Reviews for the Book
Will grows up in a shack tucked away outside of the town of Pecan Grove in the Ozarks. His father is an abusive alcoholic who causes Will to quit talking when he is five years old, and his mother has been beaten down by abuse, ailments, and life. Will’s rescuer is his part Native-American granny who instills in him a sense of right and wrong and inner strength that allows him to survive. Some of the town leaders, members of the local fundamentalist church, and several uneducated hotheads on neighboring farms are connected with white supremacist organizations. The towering white cross on Adam’s Needle was placed there by the Ku Klux Klan. Incidents of teenage pregnancy and the drug culture are growing among the poverty-stricken families. A young Jewish couple, scientists from K.U. dedicated to improving agriculture and restoring wildlife in the area, buy a neighboring farm. A gay couple moves to town to run the florist shop. Then, the church’s pastor retires and is replaced by a phony preacher bent on making his reputation by stirring up trouble with his xenophobic interpretations of Bible passages that appeal to the poor farmers and townsfolk ready to blame their situations on something or someone. Predictable trouble. Mass hysteria can be caused by unscrupulous, power-hungry leaders anywhere. This book is both an engrossing story unique to Will’s Ozark community and also a universal phenomenon. It’s both timely and ancient. Compare it to Winter’s Bone but with a political edge. - Joyce Brown
About the Author: Beth Lyon Barnett
Beth Lyon Barnett churns out exciting, action-packed tales of adventure. Her latest novel,
THIS BORROWED LAND addressed climate change after a child unnecesssarily dies.Her love of animals, especially dogs and horses, permeates her work.
JAZZ TOWN, will immerse you into the 1930’s jazz scene of Kansas City’s music, crime, and romance.
ADAM’S NEEDLE is a towering cliff in the Missouri Ozarks for a story of passion and prejudice, love and hate in the small town of Pecan Grove, USA. Both books have been Thorpe Menn nominees. Adam’s Needle was the runner-up to the prestigious Winning Writes award.
HITCHHIKER. Join a young woman who after recklessly picking up a HITCHHIKER, discovers shaman, crystals, and spirituality on her quest to find a cure for her cancer.
Beth’s life has been filled with four rewarding careers, wife and mother, director of a large hospital x-ray department, first woman sales representative in the competitive international radiology equipment market, and now author, her favorite endeavor so far.
Occasionally, she writes Beth’s Everything Blog about her life, her family, and her interests. She can be found at http://www.BethLyonBarnett.com. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and periodicals including The Kansas City Star. Her article, LISA PEARL was chosen for the latest addition of What Does it Mean to be White in America.
She has been president of several local not-for-profit organization and served on numerous board of directors. She is a founding member of CASA, (Court Appointed Special Advocates for abused and neglected children), served on its National Board of Directors, and has been president of its local chapter.
Beth is a member of Kansas City Writers Group, past member of Write Brain Trust, and several critique groups. She has served on the board of Whispering Prairie Press.
She is a graduate of Mills College in Oakland, California and lives in Fairway, Kansas.
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