Slim and the Beast


Book Description

Sergeant Chandler Dykes is obsessed with two misfits: Slim, a former cadet and disillusioned Iraq veteran with a brutal neck scar, and his best friend, The Beast, a college basketball star with a proclivity for cooking. As Slim and The Beast sidle up to a bar to take shelter from a hurricane, they strike up a conversation with the bartender, and learn that Sgt. Dykes has been haunting the place, raving about opossums, bathtub whiskey, and his estranged cadet, Slim. As the three men swap tales in hopes of understanding Dykes' obsession, they are forced to confront their own troubled pasts. With dexterous prose and unflinching humor, wrapped in the rich dialect of the South, the conversations at Lockart's traverse art, love, sex, and philosophy, while warily observing the increasingly savage storm and the ghosts it seems to be dredging up. A remarkable first novel that recalls the liveliness of Wells Tower and packs the punch of Denis Johnson, Samuél L. Barrantes' Slim and The Beast lays out what’s at stake in a friendship, and the decisions we make on the edge of adulthood that define the person we become.




The Unseen Hand


Book Description

If you visit Sam Shepard country, expect to find bayous, deserts, and junkyards where dreams rust alongside abandoned '51 Chevys. Prepare to meet broken gunmen and refugees from distant galaxies, slavering swamp things and California Highway Patrolmen gone high-tech and blood simple. It is a country whose creator does nothing less than renew America's myths. And sometimes he invents them from scratch. In these fourteen darkly funny, furiously energetic early works for the theater, our most audacious living playwright sets genres and archetypes spinning, with results that are utterly mesmerizing.




The Old West Adventures of Ornery and Slim


Book Description

Montana Kid Hammer continues his distinct brand of American old fashion storytelling tradition with,Back in the Saddle Again, the second novel inThe Old West Adventures of Ornery and Slimcowman series. Ornery, a schoolteacher and Civil War survivor turned veteran cowhand, and Slim, a young Philadelphia orphan now a part learned cowman continue to ride for the brand simply known as the O U T (Oh-Ewe-Tee) Spread.Their partnership is rekindled as they are back in their saddles again to face down cantankerous critters, the harsh western prairie elements, the lay of the land, payroll robbing outlaws, run away stagecoaches, countless dangers of a cattle drive, a cow hunt, along with some not so common cowmen calamities. Ornery and Slim labor to craft an ongoing relationship with the boss, their many pards, and their calico-gal friends, all while building a hearty proficiency around the cow craft of their day.The setting for this storybook is far less fictional and happens on the high plains of the very real North American frontier west, circa 1880's. Also shared is that time-honored cattleman's code of the west, the one so highly prevalent in the folk of the era, and played out by this tome's many matchless characters. Conveyed are humorous escapades of the cowmen as they ply their cow craft for the 'brand'. The anecdotal happenings are said so as to expose the wide range of cowman endeavors encountered along the trails and upon the plains of that very same unsettled frontier.This novel is designed to rekindle fond recollections of Old West evenings sat around campfires to a plethora of untold, yet hair-raising cowman tales. Here is a genuinely marvelous opportunity to return to those wild and wooly days of America's western yesteryear.




Fifteen One-Act Plays


Book Description

Filled with wry, dark humor, unparalleled imagination, unforgettable characters, and exquisitely crafted storytelling, Sam Shepard’s plays have earned him enormous acclaim over the past five decades. In these fifteen one-acts, we see him at his best, displaying his trademark ability to portray human relationships, love, and lust with rare authenticity. These fifteen furiously energetic plays confirm Shepard's status as our most audacious living playwright, unafraid to set genres and archetypes spinning with results that are utterly mesmerizing. Included in this volume: Ages of the Moon Evanescence; Shakespeare in the Alley Short Life of Trouble The Unseen Hand The Rock Garden Chicago Icarus’s Mother 4H Club Fourteen Hundred Thousand Red Cross Cowboys #2 Forensic & The Navigators The Holy Ghostly Back Bog Beast Bait Killer’s Head




Inner Landscapes


Book Description

"Sam Shepard has so often been called the preeminent playwright of his generation that the statement goes almost unchallenged today. Some have gone further in their praise: Partisan Review, for example, has described him as one of the two greatest dramatists of the American theater, the other being Eugene O'Neill. But despite that praise, and despite the fact that his plays have won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, there have been until now no extended studies of his work. Although primarily giving literary and dramatic analysis, Mottram also constructs a biographical context for the plays that is a blend of straightforward fact and Shepard's imaginative recreations of significant events in his own life. Shepard once wrote, "I'm taking notes in as much detail as possible on an event that's happening somewhere inside me"; that "event," fueled by what Shepard has called a library of stored images and experiences, constitutes an inner landscape that is expressed throughout the plays as well as in his collections of prose and poetry. This study traces some of the prominent features of that inner landscape, showing that Sam Shepard, like Walt Whitman before him, celebrates himself while simultaneously projecting a vision of America that is often profoundly disturbing."--Jacket.




The Beast is an Animal


Book Description

The Beast is an animal You'd better lock the Gate Or when it's dark, It comes for you Then it will be too late Alys was the only one to see the soul eaters when they came to her village. The others were sleeping. They never woke up... Now, an orphan, Alys knows the full danger of the soul eaters. She's heard the nursery rhymes the chidren sing about the twin sisters who feed on souls. She's seen people disappear into the fforest and never come back. So why, then, does she find herself mysteriously drawn to the fforest? Is she what everyone around her says she is? A witch? Alys soon finds herself on a journey that will take her to the very heart of the fforest. There she must decide where true evil lies. And face the thing they call ... The Beast. A fairy tale with a difference: shivery, dark, and deeply satisfying. 'Read it if you loved The Handmaid's Tale' - Entertainment Weekly




Hope


Book Description

Jonathan Williams, a straight A twelve-year-old, has grown up witnessing his mother be physically abused by her pimp. Seeking to escape the abuse, Joyce Williams moves the two of them from the outskirts of town into the inner city where Jonathans life becomes a living hell and he is dismissed as another statistic. But while searching for a job to meet his parole requirements, Jonathan meets a highly educated supervisor that encourages him to pursue an Ivy League education. Here, we follow him on a journey of honorable triumph against the odds.




Nick & Slim


Book Description

For ages 12+. In a new home, a new town, and a new school, Nick feels more alone than ever. His father has buried himself in his job, and his mother isn't around to help. It seems like things can't get much worse, but then his class goes on a field trip to the Silverado Ghost Town. With no friends to vouch for him, Nick is framed for stealing a museum artefact -- the journal of the notorious Slim Marano, who was hanged for murder over 100 years ago. Just when he is sure that no one will believe him, Nick comes face-to-face with Slim's spirit and discovers that they have something in common -- they were both set up. Soon Nick is travelling through time to the Old West to help Slim prove his innocence. Working with Slim's band of friends, both spirits and mortals, they unearth a conspiracy of vengeance, greed, and murder fuelled by dark forces. With danger building and time running out, Nick must discover the truth to save innocent lives... and change his own forever.




Kueshango Ghji | God's Redemption


Book Description

Billions of years ago, a prophecy was foretold by God that started the war between Heaven and Hell. The war soon came to pass, causing the peace between the realms to become unstable. A chosen warrior by the name of Kueshango Ghji was appointed as the realms' protector and set out on a quest to eradicate the wickedness from the higher and neutral realms. The Wicked One became furious with this and began to contort time and constructed the downfall of Mankind. Enraged, Kueshango embarked on a new quest to destroy the essence of evil by going against the will of God and using the power of a cursed medallion. But this fatal decision alone could result in an inevitable devastating fate.




Adventure


Book Description