On the Night Plain

From the critically acclaimed author of The Light of Falling Stars and The Funnies, a beautifully written story about a man who reluctantly accepts his birthright in a sheep-ranching family torn apart by tragedy. Hoping to make a new life for himself after World War II, and to escape the guilt he feels over the death of a brother who fought and died in his place, Grant Person abandons his family's ranch on the Great Plains for a fishing boat on the Atlantic. But the death of his mother three years later draws him back to the nearly deserted ranch. His father has mysteriously disappeared, and his only remaining brother, Max, a lifelong rival, takes off the day Grant returns, leaving Grant with a couple of hired hands, a sickly flock, and a mass of debt. When Max returns the following year, he is not alone. The ensuing contest of wills threatens to tear what is left of his family apart, and to revive ghosts Grant had hoped were gone for good. In spare, poetic prose J. Robert Lennon explores the complications of love and work; loyalty to family, the land, and one's own desires; and the nature of solitude.