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Book Review of Return the Innocent Earth

Return the Innocent Earth
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Dykeman wrote three novels: The Tall Woman (1962), The Far Family (1966), and Return the Innocent Earth (1973). The main character in The Tall Woman is a mountain woman who works to bring a community together after the Civil War. The Far Family continued the story of that same woman's family, generations later. Return the Innocent Earth recalled the Stokely family's legacy, examining modern industry through a fictionalized Tennessee canning company. The book portrayed the Clayburns, a poor but enterprising family that went into the canning business in a small mountain town called Churchill around 1900.