Release Day: May 13. Ebook available for preorder now!
Back Cover: For years, Joy Neal Kidney carried a story she felt called to tell—a World War II family history marked by love, courage, and devastating loss.
In the journey toward writing that book, she discovered something more: a gift for telling true American stories. Beginning her freelance career in her forties, Joy has published dozens of narratives in newspapers, magazines, and through the popular podcast Our American Stories.
The Immigrant and the Outlaw gathers some of her most compelling work—stories rooted in Iowa soil yet echoing far beyond it. Tales of grit, heritage, sacrifice, and the quiet heroism woven through everyday lives.
These are stories worth remembering.
Here is a list of the chapters. They sound a lot like potluck, don’t they?
Chapter 1: Celestial – meteors (this was my first byline, first $50), comets, the moon, thunderstorms
Chapter 2: Childhood on a Farm – an old upright piano, roller-skating in the house, old barns
Chapter 3: Flora and Fauna – monarch larva, birds, lilacs, winter, spiders, morning glories
Chapter 4: Discovering Ancestors – the cover story is in this chapter, a small cemetery (Lee Habeeb mentioned this one in his Foreword), a family tragedy, a Victorian house, the story behind an old quilt, first women’s suffrage, a Civil War story
Chapter 5: Grandma Leora – influenza pandemic, whooping cough, needle in her hand, ‘possum for supper, crocheting and her last Mother’s Day
Chapter 6: Raising a Son – Tooth Fairy, value of a dollar, table manners, childhood art. The book is dedicated to Dan since he was a good sport about some of these. I wrote them when he was in college. He’s a CPA, married, with a nine-year-old daughter.
Chapter 7: Travels – Stonehenge
Chapter 8: Veterans – a poem, Dad, Uncle Donald Wilson
Chapter 9: Memorial Day – rituals, the Wilson family, Iowa’s Freedom Rocks®, American cemeteries overseas
Chapter 10: Wilson Brothers – Pearl Harbor Day, Danny Wilson’s New Testament
Chapter 11: Bosnian Refugees – embracing immigrants, American Thanksgivings with Bosnian refugees. The book is also dedicated to Dzenaela and Adis who, as children, experienced some of my worst days of fibromyalgia even as I became their “American grandmother.”
Chapter 12: Holidays – Flag Day, Independence Day (1907), the first Thanksgiving
Chapter 13: Other Stories – Teenagers during the Great Depression, my high school English teacher, my little sister, men’s caps, Mom’s potato salad (with her recipe), the blessing of electricity, and an ordinary tree (this one earned more than any of the rest)
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