Hill of Beans

JOHN SNYDER'S memoir of growing up in the Depression era south evokes a time gone by. It is written with affection and understanding about people dealing with hard times, sometimes with cruelty, sometimes with violence...including a mysterious case of arson that forever changed the author's life.

JOHN SNYDER'S memoir of growing up in the Depression era south evokes a time gone by. It is written with affection and understanding about people dealing with hard times, sometimes with cruelty, sometimes with violence..including a mysterious case of arson that forever changed the author's life. In three parts, It is about early childhood among North Carolina mountaineers, living for a time with two eccentric aunts, and growing up on a sharecropper farm before the author went away to college. HILL OF BEANS has received favorable reviews from Roy Blount, Jr., Diane McWhorter, James Atlas, Jonathan Galassi, Robert Morgan, Charles Gaines and other eminent writers.

John Snyder grew up in North and South Carolina, attended the University of Chicago, and moved to New York City in 1959. Recently retired as an Executive Director of Morgan Stanley, he previously worked as a buyer at Bloomingdales, and head of research for a carpet manufacturer. Along the way, he was awarded 7 patents, made an industrial film that one first place in the New York Film Festival, and wrote 2 off-Broadway plays. Throughout his working career he maintained a machine shop for making prototypes of inventions and turning found objects into sculpture. He continues to make sculpture (www.johnsnyder.org) and has written this memoir. He and his wife divide their time betweem New York City and Cedar Mountain, North Carolina.