During the Great Depression, many young men looking for success found themselves lucky just to survive. The Chokecherry Tree, a realistic novel of the Depression set in southern Minnesota, recounts one man's attempt to escape small-town life and find success in the world outside.

Certain that he is destined for something greater than clerking in his father's store in the tiny town of Chokecherry Corner, Elof Lofblom sets out to conquer women and the world. His quest for glory is a failure, but in the end he makes peace with his fate and becomes a functioning member of the little community.

At times Manfred's evocation of the monotony of life in Chokecherry Corner recalls the satiric realism of another Minnesota writer, Sinclair Lewis. But his unsentimental observation is always tempered by his love of the land and his sense of man's place in the universe.

"Few writers ever achieve so sure a sense of place, and of how human beings are shaped by it." - Wallace Stegner