The Drop Edge of Yonder begins in the mountains of Colorado and ends in the far reaches of the Northwest, a journey that includes the beginnings of a Mexican revolution, a voyage across the Gulf of Mexico to Panama, and up the coast of California to San Francisco and the gold fields. Along the trail, Zebulon becomes involved in a series of tragic love triangles, witnesses the death of his mother and father, and confronts the age-old questions of life, love, and death.
"In this third in a series, set on a farm in 1914 Oklahoma, Casey lovingly portrays the Tuckers' close extended family, immersing the reader in both the domestic aspects and the harsh realities of everyday farm life." —Booklist Who killed Uncle Bill? Alafair Tucker is desperate to find out. One August evening in 1914, a bushwhacker ended a pleasant outing by blowing a hole in Bill McBride, kidnapping and ravaging Bill's fiancée, and wounding Alafair's daughter Mary. Does Mary know who did the low-down deed? If she does, the bullet that grazed her knocked that information right out of her head. All she remembers is that it has something to do with the Fourth of July. Several malicious acts testify to the fact that Bill's killer is still around and attempting to cover his tracks. The question is, can Mary remember before the murderer manages to eliminate everyone who could identify him? The law is hot on the bushwhacker's trail. There is little Alafair can do to help the sheriff, but that will never stop her from trying. If there's a chance she can protect Mary from further harm or help her remember, she'll do anything she can. Even confront a vicious killer.
* Time Out New York's #1 Best Book of 2008 * ForeWord Magazine Gold Medal for Literary Fiction Rudolph Wurlitzer’s first novel in nearly 25 years is an epic adventure that explores the truth and temptations of the American myth. Beginning in the savage wilds of Colorado in the waning days of the fur trade, the story follows Zebulon Shook, a mountain man who has a curse placed on him by a mysterious Native American woman whose lover he murdered, to “drift like a blind man between the worlds, not knowing if you’re dead or alive, of if the unseen world exists, or if you’re dreaming.” Zebulon sets out on the trail from Colorado, venturing to the remote reaches of the Northwest, a journey that traverses the Gulf of Mexico to Panama, and up the coast of California to San Francisco and the gold fields, bringing him face-to-face with mystics and outlaws, politically-minded prison wardens and Russian Counts, each hungry to stake their claim on the American dream. A novel of breathtaking scope and beauty, The Drop Edge of Yonder reveals one of America’s most transcendant writers at the top of his form.
Hard Travel to Sacred Places is the record of a personal odyssey through Southeast Asia, an external and internal journey through grief and the painful realities of a decadent age. Wurlitzer—novelist, screenwriter, and Buddhist practitioner—travels with his wife, photographer Lynn Davis, on a photo assignment to the sacred sites of Thailand, Burma, and Cambodia. Heavy Westernization, sex clubs, aging hippies and expatriates, and political dissidents provide a vivid contrast to the peace that Wurlitzer and Davis seek, still reeling from the death of their son in a car accident. As Davis with her camera searches for a thread of meaning among the artifacts and relics of a more enlightened age, Wurlitzer grasps at the wisdom of the Buddhist teachings in an effort to assuage his grief. His journal chronicles the survival of age-old truths in a world gone mad.
"Vividly rendered and psychologically astute, this somewhat transparent puzzler provides an unusually immersive perspective on familiar historical territory." —Booklist World War I is raging in Europe, but as the deadly influenza pandemic of 1918 sweeps like a wildfire through Boynton, Oklahoma, Alafair Tucker is fighting her own war. Her daughter, Alice, and son-in-law, Walter Kelley, have both come down with the flu, and Alafair has moved into town to care for them after quarantining her young children at their sister's farm. Boynton as a whole isolates itself like an old English plague village, discouraging anyone from coming into town and the residents from traveling outside. A new doctor applies science to treating the stricken, but Alafair applies all she knows about hygiene, nutrition, and old and trusted country remedies. Unable to aid her sons and sons-in-law fighting overseas, this is danger she can combat. One autumn afternoon, screams coming from next door alert Alafair that Alice's neighbor, Nola Thomason, and her son Lewis have suddenly and unexpectedly succumbed. Yet there is something about the way the pair died that causes Alafair to suspect their deaths were due to poison rather than to influenza. The epidemic is so overwhelming that it is many days before the only doctor left in town can confirm Alafair's suspicions; neither Nola nor Lewis died of the flu. The only witness to their deaths, twelve-year-old Dorothy Thomason, a special friend of Alafair's daughter, Sophronia, is so traumatized that she is rendered mute. Were Nola and her son murdered, and if so, why? The usual motives for murder are greed, or jealousy, or hatred. Or could it be, as Alafair fears, that the Raven Mocker, the most dreaded of the Cherokee wizards or witches, the evil spirit who takes to the air in a fiery shape to rob the old, the sick, and the dying of their lives, is hunting victims and bringing misery to the innocent?
Nearing the end of his film director career, Wesley decides to divest of his illusions and make peace with the demons of his past. At the same time, his son Walker returns from a long trip to India where he has been searching for his sister at his father's request. The father commissions his son to write a script about his experiences as it is the only way the two can share their experiences. As Wesley grapples with one final film project, his son wanders the American landscape with a disaffected roadie, searching for a new path in life.
In 2014, Alan Eustace floated 26 miles above the earth, dangling from a high-altitude balloon and protected by only a spacesuit. For years, travelers to and from outer space have passed swiftly through the atmosphere, but such voyages have left the stratosphere unexplored. Alan, a skydiver, engineer and pilot, was convinced that future explorers should be able to visit the stratosphere outside of a vehicle, protected only by special suits, much like ocean explorers do. Extreme cold temperatures, space vacuum and out-of-control spinning during freefall all threaten a stratospheric explorer and skydiver. When Alan began this process, four aeronauts had ascended into the stratosphere with the intention of skydiving down. Two of them died in their endeavors. Alan used a suit system designed from scratch, the first since the 1970?s, and a totally unique stabilization system to bring him safely down. At the top of the stratosphere Alan found a unique layer of Earth's atmosphere that should become a destination for explorers of the future. Jared Leidich, a member of the team that designed and built the space suit recounts how a small group of engineers spent three years designing, building, testing, failing and starting over, until they built the system which carried Eustace safely to the edge of the black sky and back. This account describes how spacesuits, parachutes and high-altitude balloons work, as well as how engineers collaborate, invent, solve problems and manage the responsibilities inherent in building equipment to carry a person into the unknown. The Wild Black Yonder is an invitation to imagine the future of travel away from the planet'the missions, the craft, and the reasons for going.
