"The unfinished novel from which this collection of sketches, stories, and novellas takes its title was Wolfe's final effort.

It tells the story of the Joyner family, Goerge Webber's maternal ancestors, in pre - Civil War North Carolina and illustrates Wolfe's fine sense of family traits rooted in a traceable past. "Chickamauga" is the superb Civil War tale that Wolfe received from his great-uncle; "The Lost Boy" renders a second, more tender treatment of the death of young Grover Gant; and "The Return of the Prodigal" describes Eugene Gant's imagined and then actual revisit to Altamont when he is a famous author."--BOOK JACKET.