 The Publisher, Johnson Books, has this to say: The sleeper on our list is A GOLD MINER'S DAUGHTER, a beautiful and unique account of a childhood spent in the gold mining camps of Nevada. Beautifully written, it is everything a memoir should be. Shyrle Pedlar Hacker keeps her story resonating between her childhood and her adult self, always circling back and recognizing how the child was mother to the woman. It may seem difficult to believe a memoir could be a page turner. But we all found it so - from the terrifying tale of near starvation after a furious blizzard to her mother's ongoing struggle to find a home of their own. This is a very special book and we recommend it highly. GOLD MINE OF MEMORIES: "...telling stories comes natural to Hacker. She has a knack for the telling detail, a gift for distilling the essence of landscape and personality, and such a sharp memory that, more than 70 year later, Hacker still can reconstruct conversations almost word for word in her remarkable autobiography, " by Clair Martin; Denver Post. "A GOLD MINER'S DAUGHTER is a patchwork quilt of little gems - beautifully written and utterly charming, Shyrle Pedlar Hacker catches all the pains and pleasures of growing up..." Michael Learned, star of The Waltons. "Shyrle Hacker has given us a vivid portrait of the eccentric, lost lifestyle of gold mining and in the process fills in one of the blanks in the reader's map of the west ... if it is the physicality of the landscape that first illuminated her interior wilderness and encourages discovery, it is the society she eventually joins that provides the language. A fine and thoroughly compelling memoir." Lynn M. Stegner, author of Fata Morgana, and Undertow. Isbn 1-55566-178-5 |