Beyond the Hedge of Thorns recounts the small moments in the everyday life of a boy growing up in a Pennsylvania mining town during the vanished era when the butcher, grocer, and milkman delivered right to the house, television had not yet arrived, and kids played softball on vacant lots, cruised the woods, and got into more or less innocent trouble.

Set against the backgrounds of the Second World War, illnesses not yet banished, and anthracite coal mining, with its machinery, scarred landscapes, profoundly influencing the town's inhabitants, the boyhood described here was nevertheless a happy one, full of modest adventures in unlikely places. John S. Barrett brings it back to life in these pages with a unique voice and a grand gift for remembering the details, colors, and emotions of those times.