The Orphans' Home Cycle


Book Description

THE STORY: Act One: Roots in a Parched Ground. When his father dies and his mother and sister move to Houston, Horace Robedaux is left behind in Harrison, Texas with his feuding relatives, the Robedauxs and the Thorntons.Act Two: Convicts. Horace take




The Orphans' Home Cycle


Book Description

THE STORY: Act One: The Widow Claire. On the night before he leaves Harrison for business school in Houston, Horace calls on the widow Claire Ratliff. Over the course of the evening he becomes further entangled in the lives of Claire and her young child




Lily Dale


Book Description

THE STORY: After the death of his alcoholic father, and his mother's remarriage, young Horace Robedaux remained in Harrison, Texas, clerking in a dry goods store. When his mother invites him to visit her and his teenage sister, Lily, in Houston, Ho




Courtship


Book Description

THE STORY: As gentle and warm as the spring night in which it takes place, is a mosaic of conversations and encounters that occur during a party at the home of a well-to-do family in Harrison, Texas in 1914. The Vaughns are substantial, God-fearing




Roots in a Parched Ground


Book Description

THE STORY: The Robedaux family has been divided by the exigencies of an unhappy fate. Julie Robedaux has moved back to her family's house with the children, Horace, Jr. and Beth Ruth, and has enlisted the help of her sister, Callie, in trying to op




The Roads to Home


Book Description

THE STORIES: In the first play, A NIGHTINGALE, Mabel and Vonnie, two Houston neighbors and best friends, both refugees from small Texas towns, are forbearing and patient about the protracted and uninvited visits of Annie Long, a girlhood acquaintan




The Widow Claire


Book Description

THE STORY: After returning to Harrison, Texas, from his disastrous visit with his mother and sister (and his new stepfather) in Houston, Horace Robedaux has moved into a local boarding house prior to returning to Houston to take a six week business




The Death of Papa


Book Description

THE STORY: The play begins by introducing the next generation of Robedauxs in the person of Horace's son, Horace Jr., who comes home from school to find that his maternal grandfather, Henry Vaughn, has died suddenly of a heart attack. From this poi




The Orphans' Home Cycle


Book Description

THE STORY: Act One: Roots in a Parched Ground. When his father dies and his mother and sister move to Houston, Horace Robedaux is left behind in Harrison, Texas with his feuding relatives, the Robedauxs and the Thorntons.Act Two: Convicts. Horace take




The Old Friends


Book Description

THE STORY: Matriarch Mamie Borden and the remaining members of two longtime Texas farming families await a visit from Mamie's son Hugo and his wife, Sybil. When Sybil arrives, alone, with alarming news, old friends on opposing sides must confront the issues surrounding legacy, loyalty, and the meaning of happiness that have hounded them for generations. THE OLD FRIENDS is an absorbing and vital chapter in Foote's beloved and distinctly American body of work.