Wayman Hogue s stories of growing up in the Ozarks, according to a 1932 review in the New York Times, brilliantly illuminate mountain life to its very heart and in its most profound aspects. A standout among the Ozarks literature that was popular during the Great Depression, this memoir of life in rural Arkansas in the decades following the Civil War has since been forgotten by all but a few students of Arkansas history and folklore.

Back Yonder is a special book. Hogue, like his contemporary Laura Ingalls Wilder, weaves a narrative of a family making its way in rugged,...