Mansfield, TX: Latitudes Press, (1991). First edition - The author's first novel, a story about a boy, one of five brothers, growing up in a household dominated by the grandfather, in a huge house built right after the Civil War and set on 40 acres of pecan trees, which made it almost like an island in the West Texas 'wasteland.' It was a life that seemed "almost happy" but Stephen knew that things were not as they seemed. Hanging over the family was the empty seat for his father, an alcoholic often absent as he sought oblivion in the bottle. 159 pp. ISBN: 0-941179354.