In 1772, an adventurous teenager named Petal ran off with a handsome homesteader on his way to the new frontier in Tennessee. Decades later, Petal spins a hair-raising tale for her grandchildren. She includes all the grittiest details of setting up housekeeping with what she carried from home on her back, of birthing her first baby while staving off a panther, of living in the middle of no where_with nary a known neighbor.

In 1816, Petal's grandson Solomon and a starved pig named Sue tracked the best route down off the mountain to market. He tells his grandson of his panther, not forgetting to mention his run-ins with snakes and spiders, with thorny thickets and what was hidden within them.

In 1845, Solomon's son David, inheritor of the family bent for roadbuilding, took on linking two mountains with a turnpike. Despite one mountain's mighty efforts to stop him, his feat marked the beginning of the wilderness's end.

Based on the author's own family stories, The Hinterlands is both rollicking folk history and riveting adventure fiction. Robert Morgan's three gifted storytellers tell it like it was and with a vengeance.