Set equally among the states along the Middle Border, in the small East Texas town and in a great gleaming metropolis, Crossing Eden chronicles the Pendergast family of Farrington Illinois, cast apart by circumstance into the early 20th century landscape of big business, tent shows, speakeasies, seances, bank robberies, lynchings, murder, romance, circuses and skyscrapers. It's a grand tapestry of the American experience in an age of transition from rural to urban, with the nation perched on the precipice of the Great Depression.