Stories From a Hacienda Fireside (The Collective Works of Zorra Bland #1)

Description

The first collection of short stories, novelettes, and novellas from Zorra Bland, and her contributing partner, Barton Glascock. In this volume: "The Driver" -Truck driver Ken Thacker is making a lonely trip home to visit his sister and niece for Christmas, when a mysterious woman in a classic Firebird asks to be escorted to - somewhere; "Authors & Other Freaks" - Zorra's autobiographical account of her escape as a teenager from an abusive father and dysfunctional family, and her odyssey as a young woman in San Francisco; "The Nuclear Family" - The story of an American man and his Japanese wife, meeting at the Olympics in Seoul, and later, their daughter in her struggle between three cultures; "The Wrath of Ignorance" - A man stalks a gay paramedic who saves him because of taunting and sordid tales told to him by his friends; "Trini & Jack" - Jack, at the behest of his friend Oscar, goes to Mexico to help Oscar's cousin Trini rebuild her hotel, and her family's life there; "Vengeance" - Sal Ortega, Oscar and Trini's cousin, returns to Mexico fleeing the American military in Iraq, after three years of forced retention duty and the fragging of an officer there, only to find the decimation of his family and his hometown; "Letty" - The story of Zorra's sister, and her demise into mental illness; and, "The Return of a Favor", Zorra's account of her search for Jill, a woman who has been relegated to poverty and homelessness by a devious husband, Zorra now putting herself in the streets of Oakland to find the woman who saved her from a troubled youth as she arrived in the Bay Area. And among these, readers will find Zorra's characteristics "rants" interspersed with the drama and wit that is Zorra Bland.