The Hard and the Beautiful chronicles the lives of a Mississippi tenant farmer, his wife, and their seventeen children. Woven through seven decades from the farmer's birth to his youngest child's nineteenth birthday, these chronicles provide a picture of familial stability that prevailed in spite of poverty. Roger Hines, the sixteenth of the seventeen children, celebrates his parents, his ten sisters, and six brothers. He traces the distinct historical time periods in which his parents and all of his siblings were born and grew up.

Though his family's circumstances were often difficult, Hines differentiates between material poverty and poverty of the soul and argues that material poverty is not the worst kind. He raises such questions as: what exactly are the forces that have weakened America's families the last fifty years? How did his own family escape fracture and enjoy being a family with deep, loving relationships?

The Hard and the Beautiful explores fatherhood and challenges readers to acknowledge our current need for faithful dads. It describes a family blessed by humble parents who modeled character and consistency and taught their children to do the same.