THROUGH THE NEEDLE'S EYE is told through the authentic voice of Jessie, a precocious girl raised in the Blue Ridge Foothills of Southern Appalachia after World War II. Saddled with an alcoholic narcissistic father and a passive mother, Jessie is charged with mothering her siblings as generational curses and poverty never cease to overwhelm her family. As providence would have it, Granny Isabelle sets her eagle eye upon Jessie, the child neither parents nor teachers think worthwhile. Sporting a ridiculous paper bag hat, Granny Isabelle chucks clods of dirt with a garden hoe as she earnestly works every stitch of ground to produce beds of corn and green onions to be hawked at nearby markets for nickels and dimes. Through keen intuition and a special bond, she provides a haven for Jessies survival to help motivate the child beyond her circumstances.