In the Cellar of My Mind, There Are Peaches transports the reader to 1970s rural Iowa where the author Priscilla Riggle grew up. Linked essays map a world where a baby sister is more interesting than a moonwalk, Barbies live side by side with a little girl, and a deceased great-grandmother keeps her lawn mowed and her root cellar well-stocked. Joyful play is intermingled with unexplained family moves, oppressive religious indoctrination, and life with a father who abuses his children in the name of spiritual discipline. The narrator navigates the seemingly impossible tension between delight and dread with sensitivity, insight, and hope.