"Hector moved away from what remained of the blazing house toward the orchard and waited on one knee until the soldiers spotted him. Then he stood, defiantly waved the blood-stained machete at them, and quickly raced through the rows of fruit trees that curved up the hill and away from the woods that concealed Leticia and the boys."--from "The Journey of Hector ""Rabinal"
So begins the journey of Hector Rabinal, a journey that takes him far from the threat of the brownshirted soldiers of his Guatemalan home to Texas, where he experiences the best and the worst of life among the Gringos....

First published in May 1994, "The Journey of ""Hector""""Rabinal" is a spare and strong story of what it means to remain proud and honorable in the midst of oppression and hopelessness. Hector Rabinal's journey takes him far from the threat of the brownshirted soldiers of his Guatemalan home to Texas, where he experiences the best and the worst of life among the Gringos. But when he learns that Leticia, his wife, is missing, he is drawn back to Guatemala. As he searches for Leticia, Hector brings hope and belief to his village, now largely destroyed by the brownshirts--his house is rebuilt,...

Reynolds is a forty-something liquor-store owner on Clear Creek Lake, near Cottonwood, in East Texas. Once he was a banker, but the real estate scandals of the '80s taught him he had trusted the wrong people and brought him within a hair of an indictment. Once he had a wife and twin sons, but she left after the scandal, taking the boys to her daddy's ranch in West Texas. Now Reynolds owns Lake Country Liquor Store and lives in a trailer behind the store, with several women passing through his life for intermittent periods. He's satisfied--but a little dissatisfied.
Reynolds also has a...

A novel of ambitions and desires thwarted in a small Texas town, "Dancing with Lyndon" brings the early 1950s to life. Living in a small conservative and racist town, Thomas Patterson, a stiff young criminal lawyer, is running for state district judge and hoping for endorsements from either the governor or young Lyndon Johnson, who's running for the senate. Thomas's stay-at-home wife and their teenaged son Tommy are satellites to his grandiose political aspirations. But all hopes for a substantial political career are dashed when a black client Thomas successfully defended against a charge of...