Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jo-Ann Mapson, a third generation Californian, grew up in Fullerton as a middle child with four siblings. She dropped out of college to marry, but later finished a creative writing degree at California State University, Long Beach. Following her son's birth in 1978, Mapson worked an assortment of odd jobs teaching horseback riding, cleaning houses, typing resumes, and working retail. After earning a graduate degree from Vermont College's low residency program, she taught at Orange Coast College for six years before turning to full-time writing in 1996. Mapson is the author of the acclaimed novels Shadow Ranch, Blue Rodeo, Hank Chloe, and Loving Chloe."The land is as much a character as the people," Mapson has said. Whether writing about the stark beauty of a California canyon or the poverty of an Arizona reservation, Mapson's landscapes are imbued with life. Setting her fiction in the Southwest, Mapson writes about a region that she knows well; after growing up in California and living for a time in Arizona and New Mexico, Mapson lives today in Cosa Mesa, California. She attributes her focus on setting to the influence of Wallace Stegner.Like many of her characters, Mapson has ridden horses since she was a child. She owns a 35-year-old Appaloosa and has said that she learned about writing from learning to jump her horse, Tonto. "I realized," she said, "that the same thing that had been wrong with my riding was the same thing that had been wrong with my writing. In riding there is a term called `the moment of suspension,' when you're over the fence, just hanging in the air. I had to give myself up to it, let go, trust the motion. Once I got that right, everything fell into place."

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The impact of four-year-old Spencer's death has rocked the Carpenter family. For Lainie, the loss of her son is unbearable, and now both her marriage and her very sanity are threatened. Her guitar-obsessed, slacker brother Russell isn't doing very well either, and his own love relationship is rapidly coming undone. Then there's Bop, her fierce and crusty 80-year-old grandfather. When he falls in love with a retired stripper, their earthy romance touches each of the Carpenters' lives in unexpected ways.

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Shadow Ranch

Perennial

TheEggshell Crustof Earth

"Last night as I was sleeping,a dream--the image remembering us!--of a beehive, real and aliveinside my heart. And here,where I had hidden my bitterness,a swarm of golden, stinging beesbuilding combs of snow-white wax,filling them with sweet, sweet honey."
-- Antonio Machado, untitled poem,tr. M. R. Chapman

The tiger lily bouquet on Spencer's grave could have been left by any one of a number of people. During his brief hospital stay, Lainie Clarke's four-year-old son had charmed every nurse, orderly, and janitor on the pediatric cardiac unit. Three years later, a few of them still sent Christmas cards, and from time to time Lainie received those little computerized notifications in the mail indicating that someone had made a donation in his name. But there was only one kind of individual on earth who would purposely abandon his 100X Resistol beaver-felt cowboy hat on her little boy's marker because he despised the brass angel.

That two-hundred-dollar hat, with its frayed brim and braided horsehair hat band, rested upside down next to her on the passenger seat of her 1982 Volvo sedan. At every stop light, Lainie flipped her wind-knotted long brown hair out of her face, nudged her sunglasses back up the bridge of her narrow Carpenter nose, and stared at the hat, getting madder.

Without examination, she knew it was a size eight, the satin lining worn dull and thin where her grandfather's forehead perspired against it, from years of riding horses in full sun and barking out orders. On his more benevolent days, Bop Carpenter was a man who sported a kindly, Robert Duvall smile. People--no, women--would do just about anything he asked when he smiled that way. On his mean days, a chilly grimace told the real story. He was wealthy. He was about as powerful and as wealthy as a man could be in this Southern California beachside county. He could well afford to replace a hat. But eventually, because of its history, the memories connected with it, he'd miss this particular one. Maybe not today, but in a day or so, when he automatically grabbed for it from the moose antler coat rack near his custom-made redwood front doors and found it missing. She knew how it would go: Not finding it, he'd walk outside on his deck, gaze out over the sun-dappled harbor water he'd paid a fortune for, his old blue eyes squinting against the almost unbearable brightness. In his mind, he'd slowly retrace his steps from Whistler's stables to his great-grandson's grave, and start to cry.

They all grieved. In grief they were partners, equals, a cohesive tribal unit. In every other way they were a distant, estranged family, full of blame for each other. She wanted to stamp her foot and holler, but just now her foot rested on the accelerator and stamping didn't seem like a good idea. She was thirty-five years old, once again up to 120 pounds, six months out of the psychiatric ward, and determined not to go back. It was probably as wrong not to return the hat as it was for Bop to leave it at Spencer's grave. Any halfway decent great-grandfather wouldn't make a stink about what marked his great-grandson's grave. Any halfway-sane granddaughter could find ten minutes in her schedule to drive over, drop off said hat, and tell him--politely, without an undue emotional display--to mind his own damn business when it came to angels and headstones.

At Beach and Adams she pulled over, got out of the car, opened the Volvo's trunk, and threw the hat inside. There was space for it between the toys she'd meant to take to Children's Hospital and the box of baby clothes she had--for a year now--intended to give to Goodwill. In fact, that hat looked like it had joined a little in-between club of Spencer's things. They might make it secretary or, given its original cost, treasurer.

Lainie tucked a gold sweatshirt with the Santa Fe train logo back into one of the boxes, bit her lip, and slammed the trunk shut. Then, determinedly, she got back in her car and drove on home to her husband and dogs, to all that was left of her life.

MotelRomance

The beige Sony cordless on the patio table was ringing like a hive of angry bees. Charles Russell Carpenter II, Bop to his friends--and enemies--studied the instrument, weighing his options. More than likely, it was one of those nineteen-year-old telemarketing sales children, hoping to talk him into buying two million bargain trash sacks. But then again, this was the 1990s, the age of miracles, and a day didn't pass that he didn't hold out the hope one of his grandkids might call and invite him to Sunday supper. Roast chicken, creamy mashed potatoes, new baby peas, a slice of lemon pie--that was the menu from the old days, when everybody was friendly and forgiving.

The intelligent choice was to let the answering machine pick up, but lately the gizmo had a mind of its own. It cut off his attorney, silenced his stockbroker's tips, yet every idiot caller it fed generous tape. In his opinion, ever since they relaxed the fair trade laws, and electronics started getting too affordable, things had taken a hefty downslide.

Curiosity won out. He lifted the receiver, pressed Talk and held it to his ear. Across Huntington Harbour, a sliver of early morning sun struck the water through a haze that wouldn't lift before noon. He was an old man. He could say anything he wanted. "This better be worthwhile. You're interrupting my morning swim."

"We're conducting a survey, sir, and require only a few moments of your precious time. Today's question is: If you could bring a famous person back from the dead, ask him one question, who might that person be?"

The voice on the phone was tauntingly familiar, and Bop did not hesitate with his answer. "Alexander Graham Ding Dong Bell."

A muffled snicker preceded the next question. "And your question for the man?"

"'What's the big idea, inventing machines to make it easier for a hack reporter to invade the privacy of a law-abiding taxpayer?'"

Now the voice broke into creaky seasoned laughter. "Howdy, Bop."

Bop joined in. "MacLellan Henry! The prince of yellow journalism. Ain't you pushing sod?"

"Oh, I'm a young colt compared to you, Carpenter. If I'm not mistaken, you've got a birthday coming up next month. The big eight-O, isn't it? That's a herd of candles. Hope you've got smoke detectors in that claptrap barn of yours."

Bop set his beach towel down on the table. "Mac, I'd hardly refer to Casa de Carpenter as a barn. Speaking of barns, how's your wife?"

There was a small silence before Mac responded. "Gloria is a fine woman."

"Oh, sure, if you enjoy daily hysteria and maximum credit card debt, she's about as good as they come and she's all yours. 'Course, after I got done with her she wasn't good for much, was she?"

Mac cleared his throat. "What do you want this year--big feature story on the house, complete with tawdry family history and rattling skeletons, or will this be the year I rate a personal invitation to your birthday bash?"

Bop waited for a cabin cruiser rumbling down the harbor channel to motor out of sight before he answered. "Neither option sounds all that attractive. Hadn't planned on a party, Mr. Henry, but if I did, I'm afraid you'd only make the B list. It's not just me you've been offending all these years. There's family to consider."

"And like it or not, you and your family...