For Professors
Desk CopyFor Media
Review CopyMoving Serafina
by Bob Cherry
Published by: TCU Press
354 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in
For Professors: Exam Copies
Late in life, Clayton Elliot faces long-deferred, hard choices. Circumstances force him to bury his recently deceased wife, Adelita, in the little West Texas border town of Solitario instead of next to their three-year old daughter on their hardpan ranch. To pay for Adelita’s cancer treatments, Clayton sold this marginal ranchland to water developers.
By reuniting Serafina with her mother in Solitario, Clayton hopes to assuage his guilt about her death twenty-five years earlier. However, whether Clayton moves Serafina immediately or ignores the contracted deadline, either act will trigger drilling into the aquifer for water. His lifelong friends are vehemently opposed to drilling.
When a young Mexican woman mysteriously enters his life, Clayton must delay his efforts to move Serafina and surreptitiously help this woman who has illegally crossed into Texas. This decision also raises the ire of Clayton’s friends.
Throughout the novel, Clayton struggles with both the internal and external borders of his life. And the eccentric characters of Solitario find they, too, must confront their own geographical, psychological, and racial boundaries.
By reuniting Serafina with her mother in Solitario, Clayton hopes to assuage his guilt about her death twenty-five years earlier. However, whether Clayton moves Serafina immediately or ignores the contracted deadline, either act will trigger drilling into the aquifer for water. His lifelong friends are vehemently opposed to drilling.
When a young Mexican woman mysteriously enters his life, Clayton must delay his efforts to move Serafina and surreptitiously help this woman who has illegally crossed into Texas. This decision also raises the ire of Clayton’s friends.
Throughout the novel, Clayton struggles with both the internal and external borders of his life. And the eccentric characters of Solitario find they, too, must confront their own geographical, psychological, and racial boundaries.
Bob Cherry is an award-winning novelist and poet. His fourth novel, Little Rains, set in the Big Bend country of Texas, was a runner-up for the TCU Texas Book Award. It was also a finalist for the Mountain and Plains Booksellers Association Adult Fiction Award and was listed by the Denver Post as one of ten notable books for 2003. Cherry writes from his ranch near Cody, Wyoming. He returns frequently to West Texas