Fade to Red and Other Stories

"Fade to Red" is the story of two sisters, one beautiful and one plain, who grow up on the plains of Kansas with a bitter, harping step-grandmother who favors the younger, beautiful sister, Thalia. Ethel, the older, plain sister, is the victim of her grandmother's spite. The wheat fields of their farm is Ethel's only refuge. She is a wheat farmer at heart and the town librarian by necessity. Ethel resents the popularity of her sister but also fears the fact that Thalia is too young to date the popular football hero, Buff Pennington.

When an inconvenient pregnancy upends both of the sisters' lives, Thalia is rescued from shame (in 1940s Kansas) by the man that Ethel considers as her future husband, although they are only friends. Simmering with anger towards Thalia, yet Ethel protects the family name by punishing the gossipers. Eventually the sisters manage to find unity in revenge. The result of the revenge is horrifying. Yet, it brings a kind of reconciliation.

"A Christmas Visit" is based on an unwelcome, carping great-grandmother's visit the day before Christmas Eve. When she tells her granddaughters a bedtime story that accounts for "the great sadness" in her life, they develop an affection for her.

"The Last Real Cowboy" is based on the life of a cowboy who rode in the Wild West shows just at the end of their popularity. Willie Joy, who rides broncs, lives what might appear to be an uneventful life. But he experiences a great love and takes revenge against two evil men to right wrongs.