Vividly evoking a small mid-west town during the Great Depression and World War II, Ellen and the Barber introduces us to three strong and surprising young women and the men in their lives: Ellen, who has no good reason to deny her natural instincts; Miriam, torn between the promise of a loving future and the demands of family and home; and Vera, whose intelligence and restless hunger for life plunges her into disaster.

Around these three vibrant women, O'Rourke has created a town so real and convincing that the listener experiences a sense of d├®j├á vu. Through dust storms and drought, economic depression and the lingering demise of small farming, Prohibition and the war that took its young men, the town and its people let us live and laugh and sometimes cry with them.