Red Sky at Morning
Bradford RichardIn 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 irresistibly deadpan, irreverent
humor, describes 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.