By the Tyronza River: A Novel By Joyce Belle Harvell Edited By Regina Topaz Smith

By the Tyronza River is a historical fiction about a sharecropper, W.L. Howard, from Twist Arkansas. The story takes place in Twist, Arkansas in 1941. This was a time when the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, Several Japanese Americans and their families were placed in internment camps, and some blacks were migrating from the North to the South. The United States Army requested the assistance of W.L. Howard and several other sharecroppers in helping them build the internment camps. W.L. is a proud black man living among these tumultuous times of World War II and the Japanese internment camps. Hardworking and charming to the ladies, the beautiful Essie stole W.L.‘s heart. They struggle to raise their family, but never stop thinking about the secret they have kept for years. From Mississippi to Arkansas, to St. Louis, Missouri, and to New York and Italy, W.L. and his family’s lives take different paths that could bring them closer or separate them forever.