Texas Books

"A tremendously exciting read" Judge Sanford M. Brook

Patricia Williams, Acting Justice of N.Y. Supreme Court says about Gun Crazy: "I truly enjoyed Mr. Booker's writing. He knows the secret of making you want to actually visit the scenes he describes so well. . . Mr. Booker's book is different than others, because it deals with the many different aspects of a real trial. Hence, the characters are drawn with detail and care."

Warren Burnett said: "Superbly, writer Booker honors his craft in this story of a courtroom trimph made possible by the grit and grace of Kerrville's Scott Stehling, a true examply of the decent and talented lawyer."

Racehorse Haynes said: "A brutal senseless crime, a skilled trial lawyer's fight for Justice for a young man in the wrong place at the wrong time. A must read for all interested in trial by jury."

The story has plenty of twists and turns as do nearly all Elmer Kelton's novels do. I didn't like as much as some other books of his but it's a good story none the less. A lot of familiar Kelton characters are in this story. It's ending was not what you would expect. Read it...you will enjoy it.

Simply put, any author reading "Hard Trail To Follow" has a "Hard Act to Follow"!

"Hard Trail" is a remarkable achievment of character driven storytelling by a master wordsmith. Andy Pickard, ex Texas Ranger and young farmer, is faced with a dilemna. His future brother in law, Farley Brackett, fellow ex Texas Ranger and pain the butt, is both blessing and curse. Bethel, Andy's fiancé, wants nothing more than the two men to get along without fisttocuffs. Andy, wants nothing but Bethel, and to be left alone by Farleys' biting criticism.

Enter Tom Blessing, local Sheriff and friend to all. Facing retirement and a ruthless criminal Luther Cordell, circumstances lead to an escape by Cordell and in the effort, the lingering death of Blessing. A reluctant deputy, Andy and Farley lead up a small posse to bring Cordell in for his crime. Reaching county lines, Farley leaves Andy to track Cordell as an acting Texas Ranger with no county boundaries in the way of his jurisdiction. A long trail has just begun as Andy and Choctaw John, his half native tracker, snake their way through Texas only to land up in Griffin. Cordell, along the way, had lost one member, David Johnson. Milt Hayward, the murderer of Tom Blessing, broke rank with Luther and went south to Mexico.

The Hard Trail becomes his redemption trail as Cordell rediscovers his humanity, compassion, and his ability to love once more. Cordell `dies' as Hayward is taken back as the murderer of Blessing, and William Goodson remains to start anew.

Kelton writes an amazing story. More amazing is the depth of the characters. Throughout the book, Cordell grows on you as he changes page by page. The friendly banter between Choctaw John and Andy Pickard is a delightfully light touch to an otherwise intense book.

A true mark of a master storyteller is the anticipation between volumes. If that is the case, Kelton is a master, with his harp and lyre being pen and paper. His literative voice, soothing as a ballad of old, beckons you to settle down and listen attentively. Linger, while I tell a tale...

Www.tor-forge.com

Tim Lasiuta

Elmer Kelton is the greatest. The characters are real and believable. I love the historical settings.

Once again, Elmer Kelton has written another great western story. Andy Pickard and the other great characters of Mr. Kelton's Texas Rangers series return, in addition to many colorful and interesting new personalities. This time, Andy is in pursuit of outlaw Luther Cordell, for the death of Andy's friend, Sheriff Tom Blessing. Mr. Kelton has created another great character in Luther Cordell, a likable, aging outlaw, with his own code of honor. After many years on the wrong side of the law, Luther regrets the lonely life he's led and the effect it has had on others, and wishes that he could put it all behind him and settle down in peace. Mr. Kelton again shows his ability to create characters that you'll come to care about (both good & bad, to like & dislike) and a story to keep you engrossed and entertained. As with all his previous works, Mr. Kelton's knowledge of Texas history, geography and people always bring so much to his wonderful tales.

I was shaking like a leaf when Abecka woke up to see Judson at the end of her bed! Judson is Abecka's stepfather and had molested her all during her childhood. Now, after everything she had done to save Mayree and Julianna, here was Judson when she least expected it and there was no one to help her! This chapter ends with a big surprise, Judson get's his in a way I never suspected. In the end Abecka and Clayton find each other again but there is still suspense right up to the final page! I just had to buy this book after I read a chapter on Ms Gambrell's web site. ... I hope she will write another book with the same people, I'd like to know what happens to them later in their lives!

I love Nora Robert's type romantic suspense and Healer's Daughter is that kind of book. The characters are so real that I hope there will be a sequel! I didn't want the book to end--I loved it when Judson, the bad guy, got his! Wow, what a powerful ending!

Anne and Abecka, Clayton, Judson and Mayree! I just love these characters, I hope they'll all have a book of their own before long! Abecka, the step daughter of a traveling faith healer, overcomes an abusive childhood, a stalker, train wrecks and tent fires to find the life (and love) she's always dreamed of! If you like Southern romantic suspense you'll love Healer's Daughter!

La'Nelle Gambrell wraps strong characters and plot in a jewel of a setting creating a real page-turner. We'll be hearing more from her... and soon, I hope!

If you love the Christian message in steeplehill books...you'll love this one...Excellent message to those who have had a broken heart! loved it and shared it with my friends!

Hurting and hiding from her past, Tessa Stanridge enjoys teaching children in Hill Creek, Texas. Working with children is safe, a place she doesn't have to risk her feelings. Little does she realize that is about to change.

Sexy Single Rancher who was innjured when a bull did a two step on him, Drake Slater is working to recover from near death. Learning to walk and talk is only a small part of what he has to accomplish. He also has to re-learn to read.

With his newfound faith and his new teacher--Tessa, (who needs the money of a summer job and is coerced into teaching him), Drake has no idea the impact he's about to make in the teacher's life. Nor the impact she'll make in his.

This is a love story about faith and rediscovering your first love. The zany secondary characters are back along with Tessa's on fetish for animals--a veritable zoo in her home of lizards and a cat and puppy, Myrtle the turtle, a parrot and the list goes on. A touch of humor combined with the gentle developing relationship as both people heal--physically and emotionally--make this one of my favorite books so far.

Schoolteacher Tessa Stranridge needs a means of financial support in order to live in Hill Creek. A friend offers her the solution to her predicament of opening up her home to local accident victim, Drake Slater. Her responsibilities would include attending to his needs and teaching him how to read again. Upon meeting Drake, she is surprised to realize how handsome he is. Before her is a man capable of reeking havoc in her calm, ordinary world.

Drake Slater was gravely injured when he was thrown from his horse and savagely attacked by a raging bull. He relies upon the assistance of Tessa Stranridge in rebuilding his life. Tessa is able to feed his newly-found, spiritual hunger, with knowledge that has been foreign to him for so long. With her calm, tranquil nature, she is the type of medicine he finds himself craving in order to make a successful recovery.

Cheryl Wolverton seems to write with a higher power guiding her pen. Her extensive talent enables the reader to fully appreciate the story as it unfolds. I enjoyed the characters of Tessa and Drake. I found it very memorable that Tessa was able to look past the outward scars that Drake had and concentrate more on healing the inner ones. This book is for anyone that appreciates the treasure that love is capable of providing.

Hurting and hiding from her past, Tessa Stanridge enjoys teaching children in Hill Creek, Texas. Working with children is safe, a place she doesn't have to risk her feelings. Little does she realize that is about to change.

Sexy Single Rancher who was innjured when a bull did a two step on him, Drake Slater is working to recover from near death. Learning to walk and talk is only a small part of what he has to accomplish. He also has to re-learn to read.

With his newfound faith and his new teacher--Tessa, (who needs the money of a summer job and is coerced into teaching him), Drake has no idea the impact he's about to make in the teacher's life. Nor the impact she'll make in his.

This is a love story about faith and rediscovering your first love. The zany secondary characters are back along with Tessa's on fetish for animals--a veritable zoo in her home of lizards and a cat and puppy, Myrtle the turtle, a parrot and the list goes on. A touch of humor combined with the gentle developing relationship as both people heal--physically and emotionally--make this one of my favorite books so far.

I just need to know the number it is in the Crystal Creek series. I am looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your consideration and co-operation in this matter.

Robert White

I really liked this book because I liked the characters so much. The story was tender and sweet, but it was often funny, too. I loved the wacky housekeeper and her influence on the McKinney men. As a hero, Grady is definitely a keeper. And the little boy is just adorable.

Following the divorce, Tara Hastings sells her ranch knowing that she and her son Del will have to flee the Santa Clarita area because of her powerful disruptive father-in-law Burleigh who is making demands involving her boy. Tara expects little from her ex though he owes child support and it would be nice if Sis visited Del, but the immediate problem is Burleigh. Her brother persuades Tara to move to a spread they bought near Crystal Creek where Burleigh's influence would be minimal at best. She agrees.

Grady McKinney was born in Crystal Creek, but feels the road is his home. However, an injury has sent him to the last place he wants to be: his family home. While Tara works on turning the former dude ranch into a thriving equestrian school, Grady helps her. They fall in love and her son worships him, but Grady cannot commit to staying in one place though the temptation is great and Tara still tastes the bitter herbs of her last marriage.

Though the relationship between Grady and Tara seems too soon as she recovers from the nastiness of her divorce, fans will appreciate this Texas romance between a commitment phobia rover and a scarred marital victim. The story line is typical of the Crystal Creek tales as the lead couple seems an unlikely matches yet love ties them together. Del is a delightful child, perhaps a bit too precocious, but the audience will want to hug him as he turns to Grady for fatherly attention. HOME TO TEXAS is a delightful romantic soup with several tasty ingredients making for a fine entry that mini-series fans will appreciate.

Harriet Klausner

"Home to Texas" is a terrific read - from the horse ranch setting in Crystal Creek, Texas to the thoroughly engaging relationship between foot-loose Grady and committment-shy Tara. And Tara's son Del adds a level of complication and charm that revs the story up even further. "Home to Texas" expertly juggles the growing passion of a developing romance and the gripping subplot of an ex-father-in-law putting Tara's son in jeopardy. I wholeheartedly recommend "Home to Texas."

I am new to Texas gardening, and I am more familiar with the Northwest, where we have the wonderful Sunset books to help us with our planting advice. Garrett's Plants for Texas comes close to the excellent format of those Sunset books that I have depended on for years. It covers nearly every plant I have researched for my difficult caliche-filled yard, and the advice is right on. It sometimes takes a few page jumps to find the information, as I am redirected from the common name to the more obscure Latin, but I eventually find the plant. At points, he seems a little over-the-top with organic gardening, and a few newer plants seem to be only briefly covered. The scant information on palms is disappointing. Still, I find myself using this book nearly every week. I recommend it. With this and Scott Ogden's Gardening Success with Difficult Soils: Limestone, Alkaline Clay, and Caliche Soils I have all my Austin gardening needs covered.

My significant other lives in Houston, and I, a Californian by birth, have lived in Philadelphia most of my life. An avid gardener at home here in PA, I felt uncharacteristically unsure about tackling the long-neglected flower beds in Houston.

Then I read the reviews for Howard Garrett's charming and fabulous "Plants for Texas," and ordered it immediately. It arrived yesterday and I could not put it down until I had read it cover to cover.

Every single question I have had is answered in this book in a format so clear, so concise, and so heartwarming to any gardener, that I found I was smiling ear to ear. From the beginning pages, where Garrett presents his no-nonsense advice on design, maintenance, and care of everything from trees to turf grasses to annuals, to his staunch anti-chemical point of view (YES!), I gained a wealth of information.

By the time I got to the alphabetical pages with the full-color pictures of everything a Texas gardener could ever want to plant, I was thoroughly and totally delighted. Already I have made a rudimentary list (way too ambitious, of course). Already, I have page after page bookmarked and highlighted. Already, I have planted perfect gardens in my mind's eye.

Perhaps my favorite part of the entire book is the page on hackberry (celtis), which nastily eats up a major portion of my friend's flower beds, and which I secretly, and guiltily, hate. Garrett's take: "Do not plant and cut down the ones that sprout up!" Gotta love a man who shares my views on hackberry. I love this book. Plain and simple. I recommend it to anybody who gardens, or who plans to garden, in the Great State of Texas!

This book has good pictures of plants and their flowers as well as good information on the many plants in all of Texas. It is alphabetized so that finding a plant is easy.
Also, included in the notes are some interesting comments about the plant and its use.

He lists almost all the plants that can grow in Texas and ones that don't-- The best part are the color photos of each plant along with details on mature height, distinguishing attributes and cultural requirements for each. An excellent reference for the Texas do it yourself home landscaper. His info on trees was invaluable to me

This book made me laugh and cry. I could'nt put this book down. Elaine Coffman describes things so vivdly it's like watching a movie when I read her books. This is the 4th one I've read and the best so far I would have to say.

I thought this was a wonderful book, I have read 3 of Coffman's books, and this is by far the best. It was one of those feel good books!!!

Characters names are a must - otherwise what are you talking about?

Charlotte Butterworth, 27 is a red-headed stubborn hard working woman with an inner beauty. She has also been traumitized when very young and has sworn that she'd never let a man touch her. She was afraid of men turning brutal.

She also has an overly-protective brother, Nehemiah Butterworth and his wife Hannah who love her dearly. Poor Nemi seems to be a day late and a dollar short, but he is a great brother. Even he doesn't know of Lottie's secret. He and Hannah have 4 kids.

A change starts in Miss Lottie's life when she steps out onto her porch to find some cowboys from the Triple K ranch anxious to hang a man from her tree. P.S. she has the only two trees in Two Trees, Texas, she is determined to protect her trees.
Apparently she is very good with her .44-caliber Winchester rifle.
She hollers for Jam to go get Sheriff Archer Bradley. He is sweet on Miss Charlotte.

Walker Reed, 35 looked like he had been dragged behind a horse. The bold blue-eyed stranger was grateful for having the lynching stopped. He was happy to be alive for another day. And would you believe Miss Lottie?
Of course he wondered if she would be as passionate in bed as on the porch protecting her trees.
He decided that the next order of business would be to seduce Miss Lottie to show his gratitude.

What a story of convoluted seduction. Walker and Charlotte always seemed to talking at cross-purposes. The dialogue is great. The characters wonderful even when Nemi brought in the wounded Jamie Granger.

Then there are the 3 young "ladies" on the prowl for husbands - Prissy Ledbetter, Mary Alice Tiplet and May Cartwright. Oh yes, that reminds me of the lunch auction, another great scene.

Walker has always told Charlotte that he is returning to California with his brother, Riley, who is 36 and just got married last year.
Walker has no plans of staying in Texas once Riley has identified him to the Sheriff. But he feels honor bound to seduce Charlotte without revealing his secret in order to save her from her trauma.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED --m -- definitely a keeper - humorous dialogue - exasperating, addlepated female - a male you wonder if he is licentious or truly in love. Just most Excellent.

One of those books that are hard to forget and a love story that is easy to believe. Elaine Coffman became one of my favorite authors with this beautiful novel. I am an avid fan of Judith Mcnaught, Jude Deveraux and Johanna Lindsey and I added Coffman to my list because of this book.

Fine stories of men's world
By ERIC MILES WILLIAMSON

ISLANDS, WOMEN, AND GOD.
By Paul Ruffin.
Browder Springs, $24.95 hardcover,
$16.95 paperback.

PAUL Ruffin, poet, short-story writer and professor at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, writes about Texas and the Gulf Coast so well that his new story collection is likely to define the literary territory for many years to come.

The 17 stories in the collection are about common people, folks from Texas and Mississippi who live quiet and humble lives -- factory workers, farmers, fishermen, husbands and wives and youngsters and oldsters. Although the characters are common people, the book is not. These stories are masterful, every line honed and tight and true, the sentences spoken by the characters in phrases we've often before heard but never before seen on the page.

Ruffin's work has been compared with that of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, but his stories are not derivative. Rather, they're part of the new wave of Southern fiction generally and Texas fiction specifically, a wave that includes Southerners such as Barry Hannah, Padgett Powell, Chris Offutt and Charlie Smith, and Texas writers such as Glenn Blake and Tracy Daugherty. Not insignificantly, Ruffin occasionally pays tribute to Cormac McCarthy, a Southerner-turned-Texan like Ruffin himself.

Islands, Women, and God is a man's book about the world of men. The stories center on the conflicts inherent in the stifled, brutal and often senseless world of masculinity.

Manhunt, the opening story, is about the apprehension of an escaped convict. The hunters of the convict are local men who normally spend their days selling cars and working for insurance companies, these otherwise calm men turned into bloodthirsty bigots and would-be killers, the manhunt a legal excuse to do what they would be doing were there not the constructs of "civil" society. Underpinning our culture is a violence that needs very little to turn supposedly peaceful family men into primordial beasts, Ruffin seems to say.

In Tattered Coat Upon a Stick, Ruffin writes of an aging man who, rather than live out his days in senility and helplessness, emasculated, chooses to return to the family property in the country and end his life properly and with dignity. His end is far from morbid or maudlin, but instead glorious and beautiful.

Interloper relates the tale of a family man who discovers a burglar in his house and takes care of him. Just before the protagonist of the story meets the burglar, Ruffin writes,

No, it is nothing that would warrant calling the police or awakening your wife, nothing to justify wrenching off a table leg and swinging it wildly through the dark. But it is more than simply nothing. So you must summon whatever resolve you are capable of and go down the stairs into the cold darkness of what a few hours earlier was your warm and well-lit den. You are in charge -- it is your house, your domain, and while your wife and children sleep you must stand watch if there is a threat. This is the law. A very old one.

When Ruffin's men pop, when their natures surface, he is there with some of the most perceptive and powerful observations in American literature, or any literature for that matter.

One of the best stories in the collection, The Sign, shows the brutality of father to son and son to father. At the beginning of the story we find a description of the father beating his son:

"I will beat your skin off, boy. You hold still." And the belt came down time and time again on his back, lapping around his protruding ribs like a devil's tongue, then curling about his legs, snapping until all the feeling went away and there was only sound, only sound -- and he could feel the warm of his blood trailing down from the welts, seeking its way, gathering and dripping. He stood like something carved of wax, not feeling the belt but feeling the blood. He would not cry. He clenched his eyes and teeth, but he would not cry.

The story centers on the father's wedding anniversary and a family reunion. The son returns home for only the second time in 40 years for the event. The father is dying of cancer, and the son exacts his revenge in spectacular and appropriate fashion, not by killing the father but by doing something far worse and more enduring.

The title and final story of the collection, Islands, Women, and God, is about a man named Ray who fakes his own death and deserts his wife and children to live on the barrier islands of the Gulf Coast. He is discovered by a former co-worker and friend, and the story gives occasion for Ruffin to present a sad and unfortunately viable solution to the condition of men: solitude and atavism, regression into an animal state in nature. Ray says, "I'm in harmony, man, with this island, with this Gulf. I got everything I need out here to live, and everything's in balance." Later he explains that every man is called to this state of being:

"It comes for every man. ... Every man. Only most don't know what they're seeing or feeling, or they don't know what to do about it. I'm telling you, Roger, an old man over there [in society] is, as Yeats says, just a scarecrow. Out here he's more. He's everything. He's a skull full of lightning. He's -- he's God, or he's soon going to be, because God is all of this."

We leave the book with Ray on his island and Roger back in civilization, longing to be living on an island of his own, afraid to do so yet wanting to do so.

Islands, Women, and God is an astonishing book. Every page is beautifully written, splendidly rendered and bold. Where weaker writers grow timid and shrivel, Ruffin burrows deep into truths we know but don't admit to knowing. In a time when American writers seem to strive to either shock or soothe, Ruffin instead gives us an honest vision of what lies beneath the veneer of manners and society. He is a master of language and a peerless teller of tales, and he will surely be known as one of the best writers of his generation.

Eric Miles Williamson is the author of the novel East Bay Grease and a graduate of the University of Houston's Creative Writing Program. He lives in Missouri and is at work on his second novel.

Islands, Women, and God. By Paul Ruffin. In Islands, Women, and God, Paul Ruffin returns to the Alabama, Mississippi and Texas regions he rendered so memorable in his 1993 critically acclaimed short story collection The Man Who Would Be God. They are tales of passion, suspense, violence, racial injustice, renewal, and the inexorable human quest for meaning and identity, laced with flashes of humor. Ruffin's ear for dialogue is impeccable, and his narratives are ripped, pulsing and breathing, from the unmistakable fabric of reality. The author wastes no time engaging the reader's attention. On page one of "Manhunt," the first story of section I, in searing prose pungent as the smell of burning flesh, Ruffin drops his reader deep into the pit of human violence. "The Pond" features Gerald Roper, an aging man who trespasses across Mr. Earl Palmer's pasture to fish in an artesian-fed fishpond. During his fishing expedition, Roper snags a great white thing rolling "like a dumpling in oil as the hook pulled loose and the bobber whistled past his head and clattered onto the gravel behind him, and two eyeless sockets in a white face, cradled by trembling reeds, looked right past him toward the ghostly moon." Next the reader finds Roper questioned by a deputy to whom he has gone to confess his shocking finding. Though the deputy, after viewing the "catch" and recognizing what it is, tries to convince Roper he's hooked a pig, Roper adamantly insists that what he snagged was the bloated body of his former mistress. Among the male protagonists of the other stories in section I are Mr. Turner of "Tattered Coat Upon a Stick," who, terminally ill, returns to his beloved Texas hill country to face his own death; Johnny of "The Sign," who, brutally physically abused during his childhood by his father, returns to his home after a lengthy absence and exacts his sweet revenge; the two graduate students of "Corn-Silver" who are hilariously duped by an illiterate, white-trash kid; and Buddy of "The Dog," a tragic figure who, in saving a dog caught up in a trotline, has his nose bitten off by the very beast whose life he saves, only to end up so monstrous in appearance he's abandoned even by his wife and kids, assuming a huge and dark presence "like some kind of old imagined or remembered sin." "The Dog," tragic though it is, is balanced with a moment of hilarity characteristic of Ruffin's brilliant humor. In section II, "woman" takes center stage: woman as "Nature," the mirror of mortality, the instrument of renewal, and seducer. Ruffin bares the hearts and minds of his female characters with a dispassionate clarity reminiscent of the late Eudora Welty. In "Peaches," one of the most sensual stories in the collection, a white woman misinterprets the remark of a black man who tells her that she has "nice peaches." She and her husband, Murle, are peach orchard keepers, and sell peaches in cardboard boxes by the road. Having packed his pistol and journeyed deep into the woods to the black man's cabin to address the presumed insult, he finds him on his porch steps fondling the exposed breasts of his lover. She sees Murle and rushes inside their shack, standing just inside the doorway. Upon repeated questioning by Murle as to what he meant when he said Sally had "nice peaches," Cliff insistently assures him he was only referring to the actual peaches they were selling. Meanwhile, Cliff's lover, realizing his trouble with the white man, seduces him and relieves Murle of his frustration. During the intimacy which ensues, Murle overhears an animal shrieking in the barn. She assures him that it's "just that mule," and that Cliff will stay in the barn until they're finished. Later, after Murle receives the sexual fulfillment he's so long desired, he changes his demeanor toward Cliff completely, feeling like they're friends or brothers. The "gods" revealed in the collection are as multifarious as the men and women who turn to them in their hours of darkness. There's the Great Spirit of the Kiowa in "Tattered Coat Upon a Stick;" the wrathful God of "The Sign;" the jealous God of "Peaches;" the comforting God Buddy turned to in his huge and dark loneliness; and the God of Nature of "The Drought," "April Treason" and "Islands, Women, and God." In many ways, "Islands, Women, and God," the final and title story of the collection, is a brilliant summation of the men and women who dominate the stories preceding it. Ray, the story's protagonist, fakes his death at sea to live out the rest of his life alone on a barrier island off the coast of Mississippi. Philosophizing with his friend, Roger, who "finds" him but swears to keep the find a secret between the two of them so Ray's wife can collect his life insurance, Ray says: "About women. I'm gon' tell you something else about women, some more gospel, long's I got your attention. Women are a hell of a lot closer to the center of things than men are or ever were. They're closer to the Godhead. Women are Nature. Like this island. Man, they got dark currents in them, deeper than ours run, and their bodies and minds are a great mystery, which is why men will never understand'm. They're in synch with the motion of the universe. Men are just dreams, or worse, just half dreams, but women are real. Men look for the reasons, but women are the Reason." With his second collection of stories, Ruffin makes another significant contribution to Southern and American letters. In spare, muscular prose seamless as a tendril of kudzu, Ruffin probes, with haunting insight, the light, darkness and yearning of the human heart. --Larry D. Thomas, author of Amazing Grace

Islands, Women, and God, Stories by Paul Ruffin. Browder Springs Press, 2001. 237 pp. These seventeen stories play themselves out in the Deep South, East Texas, and West Texas, three areas as dissimilar--in geography, social mores, and philosophy--as, say, Iceland, Bolivia, and Ethiopia. And while Paul Ruffin does employ his considerable skill to give vivid descriptions of these places, his poet's eye and voice and heart focuses tighter and truer on his characters, who, as credible characters must be, are spit-polished mirrors of people everywhere. And what a parade of individuals he sends forth. There's Sam, who undertakes, with a tunnel vision worthy of Ahab, to capture an enormous manta ray in "Devilfish". And Mitchell, in "Tattered Coat Upon a Stick", who wants nothing more than to have his ashes scattered among the mesquite bushes and rocks of the place where he grew up, rather than end up planted in the upscale, manicured cemetery that his children insist upon. And Loretta, perhaps the most haunting of the bunch, who uses the only tool at her disposal to save her husband in "Peaches." Loretta, who is black, has to make her unique sacrifice in the unrelenting era of racial inequality. A young insurance salesman, in "Manhunt", must make his among kudzu-draped backwoods. In "The Interloper", a husband and father must seek out something in the dark rather than lose his family to it, and characters in two of the tales choose to face their final darkness on their own terms. Sacrifice and reconciliation abound. Several of the stories chip away at the old, hard strata of established society in their various settings, and prejudice and cruelty and pomposity are served up in equal measure with love and trust and devotion. In "Corn Silver", a haughty graduate student is duped by an ignorant boy; in "The Sign," a middle aged man whose greatest accomplishment was to move permanently away from his harsh, Mississippi delta upbringing must go back to finally confront it. They were his people only in biological fact. From the eldest to the ones in diapers, they were an illiterate lot, mostly day laborers, fundamentalist in their worship and ultra-conservative in whatever politics they followed. If evolution had had a hand in improving the line over the decades, he could not imagine what they must have been like a century before - he doubted that the generations had witnessed much more than a gradual separation of forehead from cheekbones and thinning of hair from the backs and shoulders of the males. And on and on, in trailer parks, at fishing holes, on wide front porches of bourbon swilling lawyers, the themes of facing death, and, perhaps more importantly, facing life, weave their way through. And it is refreshing to read a writer who chooses not to veil his work in deep symbolism and puzzling time shifts. Every offering in Islands, Women, and God is told carefully and beautifully and forthrightly. Like the works of O'Conner and Welty, they don't have be worked at, but simply enjoyed. Whether the situations are humorous--especially when the author's letter perfect use of regional dialect runs rampant--or intense, or sad, the characters ring always true, and might just be the lady you find yourself standing behind in a grocery line. The man leaning over his bacon and eggs down the counter. The little boy not paying attention two pews up. There's a comfort level that comes with recognizing folks--be they lovable or detestable or anywhere in between--and it is as beneficial when reading good fiction as it is when stepping into a crowded room. Some reviewers have said that Ruffin is at his best when writing about fishing, a pursuit that he loves, and is good at. He's managed to work it into his poems and stories countless times and, I agree, it makes for fine reading. But I hold that he shines brightest when dealing with average people facing the daily dilemmas that life and fate just plop down in their paths. In "Drought", a couple of city dwellers have sunk all of their savings into a farm, only to be dealt a stunning setback by nature. In bed that night they listen as frogs and crickets drum and chirp around the ponds and down along the creek. The air is fresh smelling, almost cool. They lie across the bed with their heads at the open window. "I suppose," he says, "that we'll get over this." "Oh, yes, we always do." "Still, wouldn't it be good just once to get something without having to give something up?" "Somehow," she says, "it usually seems to work that way." And it usually does. In stories and in everyday life. Facing each day as it comes. Giving things up. Getting over something. And Ruffin chronicles the delicate dance nicely. In "The Pond", an old man has fallen hopelessly, headlong in love. There were times when but for the fact that he had not a dram of creative blood in him he would have gotten up and written her a poem, so deep was his passion for her. Such is the depth of Paul Ruffin's passion for the ongoing drama of living. And the reader benefits greatly from the fact that his creativity far surpasses a dram. --Ron Rozelle, author of Into That Good Night, The Windows of Heaven, and A Place Apart

A REVIEW OF PAUL RUFFIN'S ISLANDS, WOMEN, AND GOD Periodically a writer comes along whose flashlight shines a little brighter, probes a little deeper and more discerningly into that cave we call life, with the result that now and then we get a glimpse of something we never saw before. Such an author is Paul Ruffin, whose Islands, Women, and God (Browder Springs Press, 2001) gives us that whiff of something we find in unusual relationships. Already a well-known wri ter of short fiction, a poet, and a novelist, Ruffin in this work turns up the blower, as well as the acuity . Certain of his insights are breathtaking, as in the story "Peaches," wherein a black woman, in order to save her husband from a baseless and trumped-up charge, completely disarms his accuser through seduction. Or as in the small story "Interloper"--which I am ready to call the best of the seventeen stories (and world-class fiction in its own right)--a passive but dutiful and intelligent husband and father rises to the occasion in the middle of the night to save his family from a stranger in their midst and in their home, whose motives are unknown but unreliable, therefore treacherous. "You are in charge here--it is your house, your domain, and while your wife and children sleep you must stand watch if there is a threat," Ruffin says. "This is the law. A very old one." The point here is that in our progressive society now we denigrate aggression, which is probably a good idea; but in such we neglect to foster and nurture aggressive capability in the thinking individual. And aggressionýalways a function of frustrationýand aggressive capability, which can be a savior at a moment's notice, are completely different things. And we do not know this, because we use the same word for both, and tag it pejorative. In Islands, Women, and God Ruffin draws such distinctions, time and time again. The book is in two parts, the first containing random insights: the best description of the kudzu vine you will ever read; hog-killing time down South, a la Faulkner; Revelations' sign of the devil, superbly rendered; how you fee when you are out in a small boat in the Gulf and you float over a ray that is twenty feet across and quite realistically can be seen on both sides of the boat at the same time . . . . The writing is sharp, comprehensive, and heady; the dialogue tuned to perfect pitch. And perhaps the most important lagniappe in Islands, Women, and God is Ruffin's treatment of women. He is gracious, liberating, and understanding in this, but he also has a passion for the psychology underlying the man-woman relationship. Homo Sapiens is not really the rational animal we sometimes think he is, Ruffin seems to be saying, and thus when we gloss over what is really going on beneath the surface in people's lives, we invite trouble. Even chaos. It is a supreme irony that Southern Methodist University Press turned down this collection after the great and widespread success of his first collection published there, The Man Who Would Be God (which was given a half-page in the New York Times Review) because a strident feminist reader found fault with his treatment of womenýbut, then, I have faced that same problem with them too. All eight stories in the second section of the book are about some aspect of the male-female interaction. In is a time when man and woman seem to be moving apart in our country, these stories offer solutions. This book is a tour de force in our modern dilemma of the Twenty-First Century. ýRobert Winship, author of The Brushlanders, Every Man Also, and Flannery's Crossing

The Walt McDonald First Book Winner is one of those awards that I watch for. One of my favorite books of poetry (April Lindner's Skin) won it. And now another winner has become one of my favorites. Catherine Tufariello has written a wonderful and beautiful book. It is a collection of formal poetry that shows a mastery of someone that you would have expected to have been writing much longer than she has. The book is divided into five sections. Section one contains seven well written poems. Section two contains several of my favorite poems. "Snow Angel" is a wonderfully written villanelle (which is difficult to do well). "The Mirror" is a sonnet that deals with divorce is such an original way. "Ghost Children," another sonnet, takes on the inability to have children--describing the features of their unconceived children in such beautiful language that you can picture the child and mourn its loss. It's a masterful poem. One of my favorites, "Keeping My Name," takes on the issue of her last name, and it is a mouthful. After all the seriousness we've had, this bit of lightness falls in perfectly here. Section three are translations of Cavalcanti, Guinizelli, and Petrarch. Section four starts with Lorenzo Lotto's Annunciation and then goes into a series of biblical poems, several of which ("No Angel," "Rebekah I," and "Mary Magdalene") are truly some of her best work. It's really a great collection of poetry and after reading it, it has become one of my favorite collections, one I'm recommending to everyone I talk to.

Catherine Tufariello is a young poet with an ageless sensibility. I marvel at her seemingly effortless technique, her warm sense of humor, and her muted renderings of desire, sorrow, and joy. A contemporary master of the sonnet, the heroic couplet, and rhymed quatrains, Tufariello writes movingly and wittily of heroines ancient and modern, capturing the essence of their experiences in lines that etch themselves in memory. Take, for example, the closing line of "Rebekah (I)," which sums up this childless women's lament: "My life contracted to a cry for water."

Or consider Tufariello's sumptuously detailed sonnet "Fruitless": Now oleander flames along the beach/ And tart green sea grapes ripen one by one,/ While inland, warm and heavy in the sun,/ The rosy mangoes dangle out of reach./ Alone these languid afternoons, I teach / Myself the names of trees. We're overrun / With litchi nuts, and then, their season done,/ Pick sapodilla, sweet as any peach. // A mass of tangled green, the lawn's gone wild. / Another friend has had another child, / This one (she'd laughed, embarrassed) a surprise./ Small lizards, lithe in torrid silence, dart/ Beneath beseeching sprays of bleeding heart/ And blue and orange bird-of-paradise.

The list of excellent original poems in this debut collection is astonishingly long: "Free Time," "Dana Dancing," "The Walrus at Coney Island," "Epitaph for a Stray," "The Mirror," "The Worst of It," "Pentimento," "No Angel IV," "Rebekah I," "Mary Magdalene," "Keeping My Name," "The Waiting Room," "Ultrasound," "Fruitless," "Useful Advice," "In Glass," "First Contact," "The Dream of Extra Room," "Useful Advice: The Sequel," and "Liana's Song." And then there are the superb translations of Petrarch's sonnets, including "Now you have done your utmost . . . "Oh. Lady, if my life . . ." and "Go grieving rhymes . . ."

The publication of this book is a signal event in American literature. Don't miss an opportunity to own the first book by a poet who will never go out of style.

This book is comprised of an excellent collection of poetry by a young poet of unusual ability. Her talent is eloquently displayed in a New Formalist motif employing both meter and rhyme, although she displays her virtuosity with free verse as well. A number of her poems display a limitless inner emotion and pathos. Yet she is capable of humor and light-heartedness as well.

Among the most memorable of her poems is "February 18, 1943," a tribute to Sophie Scholl, a leader of the White Rose student resistance movement in Nazi Germany, who was arrested on the titled date and executed shortly thereafter. Clearly this episode moved the author deeply as she named her own child Sophie in tribute, a revelation appearing in both "Thirty Weeks" and "This Child." That this poet is very adept at revealing her deep inner emotions is also demonstrated in "Elegy for Alice," which memorializes a close friend who suffered a premature death.

Ms. Tufariello also tackles lighter subjects with a keen eye for the magic of everyday life as demonstrated by "Dana Dancing," the "Walrus at Coney Island," "Insomnia," and the especially amusing "Crossed Wires" that details the intimacies of an unintended party line in Brooklyn. Yet, it is in her denouement of pathos that she rises to supreme heights. One selection, "Snow Angel," paints a deeply moving protrait of a sister confronting the horror of anorexia nervosa, while others (e.g., "The Mirror," "Ghost Children," "The Worst of It" and "Penimento") bare her own torment in dealing with the reality of a failed marriage.

A delightful poem that gives title to this collection (i.e., Keeping My Name") communicates to the reader why, even after two marriages, the author chose to retain her own long but beautifully melodic name.

Several of the poems deal with the author's desire to bear children, uncluding "Useful Advice," a moving poem detailing the insensitivity of well-meaning friends who offer advice on surefire means to become pregnant. Also included are several poems dealing with technological means of aiding in this process, one of which was successful (e.g., "In Glass").

For me, one of the most powerful poems in this very strong collection is a pantuom entitled, "Zero at the Bone," referring to a phrase in an Emily Dickinson poem (i.e., "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass") that describes one's fright at encountering a coiled up snake ready to strike. Ms. Tufariello draws an analogy of that viper with a cancer ("What touched its fuse until it sprang, Purposive, lithe, and swift as fire?") biding ts time to unmask itself. Finally, the correct diagnosis is made ("Then finally the sirens rang.").

This collection has much more to recommend it, including some beautiful translations of Italian Poetry (e.g., that of Petrarch). It reveals a wonderful new talent and is to be strongly recommended.

Catherine Tufariello's new collection is a startling first appearance. To borrow (as I do in my title) from the famous letter Emerson wrote Whitman after a first reading of the 1855 Leaves of Grass, here a great career begins, which must have had a long foreground judging by the quality of this initial performance. Indeed, I agree with Richard Wilbur that this is "one of the finest first collections I can remember seeing," and that Ms. Tufariello is "a new poet who plays the whole instrument of poetry," which is to say she has an eloquent voice, a tirelessly observant eye and a musically sensitive ear, and she combines all of them seamlessly with a confident, unforced command over the power inherent in poetic meter and form that is rarely heard today. To witness the dazzling formal mastery and variety of this collection flow, organically and inevitably, through observations so acute and expression so delicate they invoke the finest poets in our tradition, is to become reacquainted with the full power inherent in poetic language through a voice that is nevertheless absolutely of our own moment. From a lovely lyric describing a little girl dancing alone at her older cousin's wedding with unfallen joy and egotism to a heartbreaking elegy for a schoolmate, from a delicate villanelle describing a young woman's struggle with anorexia to a stunning tribute to the leaders of the "White Rose" resistance movement in Hitler's Germany, from surprisingly fresh translations of Petrarch and Guido Cavalcanti to delicate personal histories describing the sadness of a broken first marriage and the redemptive joy of a daughter born late during a second, Ms. Tufariello commands the entire keyboard of her art. This is what I read poetry for, and why I hope the art survives the current age.

Hello cousins!How are ya'll doing?I'm fine.I am the grand-daughter of Fannie Lou (Ferris)Whittaker and Orville Eugene Whittaker.My mother Susie Marie was their oldest child-my aunts are Betty and Patsy and my uncle is Larry Whittaker.I am fixing to create a family website on MSN Communities-I have alot of stuff that was written by cousin Phyllis Kitson.Once I get it done you all are invited.My email address is neal36@msn.com-please feel free to drop me a few lines,I love hearing from family.Hugs and love to all,Lillie
PS-I'm going to buy 2 of this book-one for me and one for my mom!

I appreciate Suzanne Starling for showing what Warren Angus Ferris did for Dallas, as well as showing what an interesting career and life he had. James Monroe Ferris was my great grand-father, who handed down the chain used to survey Dallas to my grandfather, Edward Eugene Ferris. He handed it down to my father, Raymond Edward Ferris. My father still has the chain and I wish a picture could have been included in the book. My father also has a gold watch which Warren Angus gave to his second wife. There are a couple of minor mistakes, such as James Monroe Ferris having been a United States Marshall for Greer County, TX (now Oklahoma) the entire time and not a Sherrif's Deputy. But, without a doubt this book is an accurate account of a complex, hightly intelligent man and his frontier life.

I was most gratified to learn (quite by accident) that a book about WAF had been written. WAF was my great-grandfather, his son, Henry Ferris, was my grandfather, and my father was Carl Dallas Ferris. One error in the book referred to my grandfather as childless, when, in fact he had two sons and two daughters, & was living in Spur, Texas, where he died & is buried. (Most family records show he was living in Wink, Tx. at his death.)I don't consider this a major fault, as much of the rest of the book was as I had read and heard. I am sure most historical writings contain errors, if we but knew the inside story. My father was a great storyteller, & he used to entertain us for hours with stories of WAF which he had heard from his father and Aunt Kate. Warts and all, I am just glad that after all this time, Warren Angus Ferris is getting some of the recognition he so richly deserved. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the early days, regardless. Miss Starling did a very good job with old clippings and letters. Bravo! Janelle Ferris Berry

The author contributes much to the history of the west, Texas, and, more particularly, Dallas County. The early adventures of WAF in the Rockies, which taught him lessons in survival, fortified his spirit to, not only survey the land, but to choose it on which to build a family. The author makes much of the Lovejoy connection to WAF, which is interesting, but negilected WAF's immediate family except for bits and pieces. They became settlers of the land. Of his son's family (James Monroe "Jim" Ferris), few if any knew of the publication of this book. It was discovered, quite by accident, on the internet and copies sent to several of Ferris' decendants. Pictures of the demolished headstones at the Dallas cemetary, of Lucy Mae Pounds Smith working in the cemetary to clean it up, of the children of Jim Ferris--could have been included. But, once again in history, the true settlers of the west are ignored as the author focuses on the Lovejoy decendants and their "coat-tail" claim to fame of a half-brother who they turned their back on, time and time again. If you have not read, "Life in the Rocky Mountains" and are interested in what life was like in the 1800's, more especially life in the mountains, I would suggest that you do so. Although the three editions which were published are out of print, they can be found. WAF was a very well-read and even witty young man who wrote of where he was and what he saw, and he was many places and saw many things. "Land is the Cry" is a continuation of the WAF saga. And after reading about some of the treatment from his own family, no wonder he decided to "go west." Poor at death, he will live on in the hearts of his Texas and Oklahoma decendants. As for Dallas, like Bud Ferris said regarding the plaque at the cemetary, "Too little, too late."