Some stories refuse to stay buried. How Things Were is a serialized work of historical fiction — a generational saga that follows one family from the turn of the twentieth century into the shadow of the 1940s. It is a story of ordinary people caught in extraordinary hardship: loss, survival, violence, love, and the kind of quiet endurance that rarely makes the history books.
Loosely inspired by true events, How Things Were does not flinch from the harshness of that era. These were not easy decades to live through, and this story does not pretend otherwise.
New installments are posted here as the story unfolds. Start from the beginning and follow along.
Zachary Peters 