Kirjahaku

Set in southwestern New Mexico, "Thin Men of Haddam" deals with the problems of Hispanics trying to make their way in an Anglo world. Orphaned as a child and reared by an Anglo family, Raphael Mendez lives in a nether world, neither de la raza nor Anglo. Having dropped out of graduate school after a squabble with his fellowship sponsors, he is foreman of the ranch of his childhood. Paired against Mendez in this striking first novel is his cousin, Manuelo --practically literature, broke, and the father of six starving children, and unable to find work. When Manuelo's desperation pushes him to the other side of the law, Mendez must choose sides.The novel is impressive for its crisp, clear depiction of local life in the area known as "Little Texas" and for its intense portrayal of the desperation of some Hispanics at the time.

It's 1956, and James Robert (Jimbo) Proctor's just turned sixteen when his Uncle Waylan and his new wife Vicky invite him to spend a summer toiling in the oil patch in New Mexico. Jimbo dreams that heaving heavy metal about will serve as well as a Charles Atlas course to make a man of him, but he lands smack dab in a domestic fracas that has his uncle living in his machine shop and sneaking out with Sharon, his secretary. Meanwhile Jimbo's Aunt Vicky leads a protest against a fundamentalist book ban and rails against American H-bomb tests on Bikini. James sets out to solve the case of what he calls The Hardy Boy and the Mystery of the Marital Estrangement, but when he meets Sharon's cousin, Trudy, and plummets into love himself, the mystery of what brings men and women together or keeps them apart only deepens into confusion and torment. And James has more to learn than why we love and how we earn a mate both deserved and deserving. He's coming of age in a pivotal year in an era of repression and transition.

Set during the turmoil of World War II, ""Purple Hearts"" is the story of the epileptic scion of an East Texas timber and oil fortune and his marriage to a stunning stranger desperate for sanctuary. Though naive and virginal, thirty-year-old Georgie Karacek wins Sylvia through his charm and kindness. Longing to prove himself, he then hides his illness to join the army. Sylvia's relationship with Georgie's overprotective mother proves difficult, so to make ends meet she takes on a boarder, Robert, in Georgie's absence. Soon Robert and Sylvia grow close, and he presses her to run away with him.When Georgie's epilepsy comes to light, he is discharged, and on returning home he suspects that his bride and the boarder are lovers. But wartime conditions explode into rioting, and that uproar puts them at odds with the town when Georgie helps a black friend flee.""Purple Hearts"" is based loosely on events in Beaumont, Texas, in July of 1943, when shipyard workers rampaged following a rumor that a black man had raped a sailor's wife. Several people died and scores were injured, and that riot echoed those in Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Writer/critic Bryan Woolley has hailed ""Purple Hearts"" as 'the best novel I've read about the home front during World War II...[it] illumines the dark fact that there was more to that home scene than ""Rosie the Riveter"" and ""War Bond"" drives.'