Dirt-poor, sensitive as poets, and proud as kings, the Powell family has lived on a Georgia mountaintop for generations. Then, during the 1960 s, young Ursula Powell s father convinces the Tiber family, owners everything in nearby Tiberville, to commission a huge iron sculpture of a bear for the town. Decades later the strange sculpture rejected by the townspeople and left to rust on the Powell farm symbolizes a family s failure and thwarted dreams. But, unknown to Ursula, it is now worth such a huge fortune that the artist s embittered son, Quentin Ricconni, is coming to reclaim it . . . and to change everything Ursula believes about the past, the choices that break a heart, and the redeeming powers of art and love.