From time to time our mother would take us through the many photo albums of their marriage, including one of great poignancy he [Ross Lockridge, Jr.] made shortly after his novel was accepted. The visionary landscape of Raintree County, sketched in pencil, merges with photographs of familiar Indiana pastoral scenes, and Ross and Vernice are smiling together in photos going back to their courtship days. "'Tis summer and the days are long!" As my sister would write, his memory "has been carefully preserved for us by our mother and others, like a rare and beautiful life-form, long since extinct, preserved in translucent amber." --Larry Lockridge, Shade of the Raintree, p 7