McKenney was a capable journalist who had spent a year and a half in Akron, the heart of the tire industry, a city that she said "smells like a rubber band smoldering in an ashtray." Industrial Valley vividly portrays an industrial city crippled by the country's economic failures and also provides a stirring example of fiction predicated on social and political principles. It will intrigue readers for its contemporary as well as its historical implications. The images McKenney evokes of workers confused and enraged by a moribund economy seem startlingly relevant today.

    In Cwmardy, Big Jim, collier and ex-Boer War soldier, and his partner Siân endure the impact of strikes, riots, and war, while their son Len emerges as a sharp thinker and dynamic political organizer. Len’s tale is taken up in We Live, in which he is influenced by Mary, a teacher, and the Communist Party, which becomes central to his work both underground and in union politics, and to his decision to leave and fight in the Spanish Civil War. Cwmardy and We Live paint a graphic portrait of the casual exploitation, tragedy, and violence as well as the political hope and humanity of South Wales industrial workers from the 1900s to the 1930s.

    Set in the piney woods of south Georgia just after the Civil War, it tells the story of a struggle between local land owners and Northern investors. The investors sought to harvest the "wooden treasures" of virgin pine forests. Over time, they used the power of money and the courts to wrest the title to the lands. A labyrinthine legal battle stretched out for more than half a century, culminating in the murder of the Company's land agent, along with as many as 35 more deaths. Based on historical fact, Cheney's novel brings to life a lost time in our history. Reviewed nationally on publication, it highlighted Cheney's friendship and literary connection to many of the Fugitive and Agrarian movement figures. A companion volume, THE LIGHTWOOD CHRONICLES tells both the fictional and true stories of LIGHTWOOD.