Little Hatchet

In the years after the Civil War, James Oakley moves his family to the banks of Little Hatchet Creek in New Mexico. When his little brother is kidnapped from the front porch of their cabin, 12-year-old Walter Oakley sets off in pursuit. In time, the Oakleys make their peace with the existing residents of their new neighborhood: the Mescalero Apaches, the Comanches, and the Tejanos. But new challenges await in Texas as the new century dawns. The hardships posed by the frontier pale compared with Walter's efforts to keep his family together amid the decadence, drunkenness, and violence of Prohibition.

As the first installment in The Oakleys, Little Hatchet is an epic historical family saga that portrays the multigenerational struggle for survival, loosely based on the author's kin. A tale of courage, determination, and endurance set against the unimaginable tragedies that beset the lives of Ada and Walter Oakley and their eight children.

PHIL OAKLEY is a novelist and veteran journalist with experience in the motion picture industry. He is a retired regional executive with The Walt Disney Company (ABC News), a former director of the Louisiana Film Commission and a retired editor with the Dallas Morning News. He covered presidents and presidential campaigns beginning with Lyndon Johnson and ending with George W. Bush. He was a television and radio anchor and reporter with national awards from Columbia University, the Radio-Television News Directors Association and the National Headliner Award program in Atlantic City. He began work on his first novel in 1964 while a student at the University of Texas at Austin. In all he has written eight novels.