The Sundown Corral

I am really excited that my website, samleejackson.com has been updated and one of my novels is being uploaded. If you wish to access it you can do so from this blog. I've written five different novels and three of these are westerns and looking at the title above you might think The Sundown Corral is a western also. You would be wrong. It does take place in the west, right here in Phoenix, but the time is 1980. When Phoenix was not yet the big glass and concrete sprawling wall of noise it has become. Back then it was still an almost sleepy big cowtown. Everyone was friendly and down to earth. We had no high rises on Camelback, no sports team except the Suns, no massive housing developments and for me, no worries.

This is my Steinbeck novel. John Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden) was the best at capturing the real people. The regular folk. The ones that really inhabit the world.

I worked a very short time as a bartender at a little bar on 32nd Street named the Sundown Corral. I used it as a backdrop for my story. I was fascinated by the sub culture of bar people. Fascinated at how the neighborhood bar was as much a part of their lives as church is to my Christian friends. Many of the characters are based on real folks. The Old Man, Diane, Butch, Duane, Chicago George, John the Painter and many others actually existed but not necessarily in the form I created for them. The physical description of Jack and Cassy was based on real people but their circumstances are purely fiction. The description of the Corral is accurate. The description of the "Rodeo" is accurate. Doc Goldman is retired and living in Michigan teaching Junior College Math. Many of the bars are still there though some have changed names.

However, this is not a story about a bar. It is a story of redemption, a story of reconciliation, and mostly a coming of age story of a young man searching for the father he never had and finding so very much more.

Tina has the first four chapters up and I like this segmented uploading as it allows someone to read a little at a time. Take a few minutes from the day and go to another world. A world that in my memory was a lot simpler and a lot sweeter than today. I suppose that is the way of all memories.

If you like it let me know. Either post a comment on this blog or e-mail me at sjackson25@cox.net If you don't like it, be kind.