Richard Vaughn – författare

A lonely boy''s landscape encompasses the U. S. Middle Westand California during the Great Depression 1930s through theWorld War II home front and late 1940s. Broken shards ofyouthful memory: rooming with strangers, moving from placeto place with sudden frequency and continual uncertaintybecause of poverty and a mother''s marital failures. Seenthrough a boy''s eyes from six to sixteen, here are children andadults in the throes of financial hardship and tumultuouswartime: an empty house with deathly echoes, relatives sweptinto the cataclysm of war, a cousin gripped by suicidal grief, afamily betrayed, and unexpected humor, friendship, hope andfirst love. He escapes into movies, comic books, adventurousimagination with fantasy excursions, and fascination withguns. Through it all is his mother, raised on dreams of aluxurious life but thwarted by doomed relationships as shesearches for love and security when both are rationed ortransient. He lives an adolescence not knowing who he is orwhere he belongs as events propel him toward the loominghorizon of manhood.

A down-and-out saloon singer returns to the mountain town she fled as a distraught teen two decades before and encounters a one-night-stand boyfriend, her late fathers strange legacy, and a chance to redeem her life in the title short story. Other characters, through impulse, indiscretion, malevolence, ambition, pride, self-indulgence, greed and various faultsuncover more than they are prepared to accept. Lack of self-control undoes those who embrace careless living and casual desires. Some characters, having gotten too near the edge, pull back and plumb for subjective strength to recover. For others, self-inflicted adversity is the only way they can salvage lives careening completely toward destruction. Throughout these stories are indelible human beings striving for whatever grace and lovetheir circumstances offer, as well as unforgettable characters jousting with fate even if the deck is stacked against any chance of victory. Most deserve whatever happens to them, as some do not. In each situation they, like people everywhere, place their needs and desires squarely on the line and plunge ahead.