Homefield: Sonata in Rural Voice
Copyright © 2001
by Robert Richter
Backwaters Press
How to Buy
|
An enduring story of the return of a Viet Nam War expatriate to his
hometown in Western Nebraska. He learns not only about himself,
but about the bonds of friendship, family, and the land. A work of
fiction that will take its place alongside the greats of Prairie
literature. — from the jacket
|
|
Something in Vallarta
Copyright © 1991
by Robert Richter
Permanent Press
How to Buy
|
Cotton Waters is a young American expatriate hiding out on the Mexican west
coast in 1972. An ex-student, ex-political activist with uncertain draft
status and pending legal problems, he has lived incognito for over a year
along a tropical frontier of fishing villages and empty beaches, thriving
on
cantina life, beachcombing, bodysurfing, jungle slumming, and playing second
base for a local village baseball team. He's an illegal gringo alien, living
a lazy village life and known to his cantina buddies as Algo —
"Something" in English. Armed with a little Spanish and a passion for
the Mexican coastal
culture, he is a disillusioned dropout, waiting for the rest of the world to
regain some sanity.
When his money finally runs out, Algo reluctantly goes into Puerto Vallarta
to
find work for wealthy Americanos who live in Gringo Gulch so he can
maintain
his tropical hiatus. Aided by a slick village friend who lives off
vacationing American women, Algo soon finds himself in a "poor man's"
sports
car, following a beautiful woman for a jealous lover, and living the
Vallarta
jet-set lifestyle. As the chase leads away from the bright resort lights of
the Mexican Riviera into the tropical mountains, Cotton Waters encounters a
class of gringos living by their own particular set of values that all but
excludes the Mexicans and their culture. He also finds himself an unwitting
decoy in a drug trafficker's double-cross, and now his only hope of escape
is
in the hands of the villagers whose way of life he has embraced. —
from the jacket
One part Raymond Chandler and two parts Hunter Thompson, Richter's
atmospheric first novel introduces us to Cotton Waters, an expatriate gringo
beachbum ... in a crackjack plot involving corrupt police, drugs, porn films
and sunken treasure. ... He also captures the flavor of Mexico where "manana"
is the operative word. — Publisher's Weekly
Well-worn storytelling with a nostalgic
counterculture feel, all as
comfortable as your old pair of Weejuns. — Kirkus Reviews
|
What the Critics Say
