Synopses & Reviews
In the summer of 1944, Frank Arnold, a wealthy shipbuilder in Mobile, Alabama, receives his volunteer commission in the U.S. Navy and moves his wife, Ann, and seventeen-year-old son, Josh, to the family's summer home in the village of Corazon Sagrado, high in the New Mexico mountains. A true daughter of the Confederacy, "wrapped up in tissue paper like a Wedgwood egg cup," Mrs. Arnold finds it impossible to cope with the quality of life in the largely Hispanic village and, in the company of Jimbob Buel an insufferable, Virginia-born, South-proud professional houseguest takes to bridge and sherry. Josh, more the son of his Baltimore-raised father than of his class-conscious, Old South mother, becomes an integral member of the Sagrado community, forging friendships with classmates at Helen De Crispin school, with the town's disreputable resident artist, with Chango Lopez macho bully turned model student and with Amadeo and Excilda Montoya, the couple hired by his father to care for their house. Josh narrates the story of his fateful year in Sagrado and, with deadpan, irreverent humor, reveals the events and people who influence his progress to maturity. Unhindered by his mother's disdain for these "tacky, dusty little Westerners," Josh comes into his own and into a young man's finely formed understanding of duty, responsibility, and love.
Review
"[A] sort of Catcher in the Rye out West." Book World
Review
"What makes the book a true delight is the deadpan, irreverent humor with which Josh tells the story....No brief review can do justice to Mr. Bradford's book." Washington Post Book
Synopsis
The classic coming-of-age story set during World War II about the enduring spirit of youth and the values in life that count.
In the summer of 1944, Frank Arnold, a wealthy shipbuilder in Mobile, Alabama, receives his volunteer commission in the U.S. Navy and moves his wife, Ann, and seventeen-year-old son, Josh, to the family's summer home in the village of Corazon Sagrado, high in the New Mexico mountains. A true daughter of the Confederacy, Mrs. Arnold finds it impossible to cope with the quality of life in the largely Hispanic village and, in the company of Jimbob Buel--an insufferable, South-proud, professional houseguest-- takes to bridge and sherry. Josh, on the other hand, becomes an integral member of the Sagrado community, forging friendships with his new classmates, with the town's disreputable resident artist, and with Amadeo and Excilda Montoya, the couple hired by his father to care for their house.
Josh narrates the story of his fateful year in Sagrado and, with deadpan, irreverent humor, reveals the events and people who influence his progress to maturity. Unhindered by his mother's disdain for these "tacky, dusty little Westerners," Josh comes into his own and into a young man's finely formed understanding of duty, responsibility, and love. One of America's finest coming-of-age novels, Red Sky at Morning remains a "first novel to rejoice in" (Harper's) and "a novel of consequence" (New York Times Book Review).
Synopsis
"Red Sky at Morning is a minor marvel: it is a novel of paradox, of identity, of an overwhelming YES to life that embraces with wonder what we are pleased to call the human condition. In short, a work of art." -- Harper Lee
"A sort of Catcher in the Rye out West." --Washington Post Book World
The classic coming-of-age story set during World War II about the enduring spirit of youth and the values in life that count.
In the summer of 1944, Frank Arnold, a wealthy shipbuilder in Mobile, Alabama, receives his volunteer commission in the U.S. Navy and moves his wife, Ann, and seventeen-year-old son, Josh, to the family's summer home in the village of Corazon Sagrado, high in the New Mexico mountains. A true daughter of the Confederacy, Ann finds it impossible to cope with the quality of life in the largely Hispanic village and, in the company of Jimbob Buel--an insufferable, South-proud, professional houseguest-- takes to bridge and sherry. Josh, on the other hand, becomes an integral member of the Sagrado community, forging friendships with his new classmates, with the town's disreputable resident artist, and with Amadeo and Excilda Montoya, the couple hired by his father to care for their house.
Josh narrates the story of his fateful year in Sagrado and, with deadpan, irreverent humor, reveals the events and people who influence his progress to maturity. Unhindered by his mother's disdain for these "tacky, dusty little Westerners," Josh comes into his own and into a young man's finely formed understanding of duty, responsibility, and love.
Synopsis
Hailed by the Washington Post Book World as "a sort of Catcher in the Rye out West," and by Harper Lee as "a work of art", Richard Bradford's Red Sky at Morning is the classic coming-of-age story set during World War II about the enduring spirit of youth and the values in life that count.
In the summer of 1944, Frank Arnold, a wealthy shipbuilder in Mobile, Alabama, receives his volunteer commission in the U.S. Navy and moves his wife, Ann, and seventeen-year-old son, Josh, to the family's summer home in the village of Corazon Sagrado, high in the New Mexico mountains. A true daughter of the Confederacy, Ann finds it impossible to cope with the quality of life in the largely Hispanic village and, in the company of Jimbob Buel--an insufferable, South-proud, professional houseguest--takes to bridge and sherry. Josh, on the other hand, becomes an integral member of the Sagrado community, forging friendships with his new classmates, with the town's disreputable resident artist, and with Amadeo and Excilda Montoya, the couple hired by his father to care for their house.
Josh narrates the story of his fateful year in Sagrado and, with deadpan, irreverent humor, reveals the events and people who influence his progress to maturity. Unhindered by his mother's disdain for these tacky, dusty little Westerners, Josh comes into his own and into a young man's finely formed understanding of duty, responsibility, and love.
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New York Times Book ReviewSynopsis
The classic coming-of-age story set during World War II about the enduring spirit of youth and the values in life that count.
About the Author
Richard Bradford was born in 1932. He is also the author of So Far from Heaven.