New Releases by Robert Roper

In the midst of the Great Depression a small Western town slips further down into despair with the killing of a small lonesome boy who attempts to rob a jewelry store. The boy symbolizes the misery and despair of all of the town''s inhabitants until the arrival of "The Great Leonard", a magician who is manipulated by the town''s sub-rosa benefactor into playing the billiards game of his life, against himself, his self-doubt, and his almost total abandonment of life itself. The game fires the town with an excitement it has never known and involves all the citizens and the wonderful characters who play their part in this story of challenge, love, and magic.

La 4e de couverture indique : Bien que née dans une famille d''alpinistes célèbres, Louise, douze ans et un peu boulotte, ne manifeste guère de dispositions pour la montagne. Qui plus est, dans les années 1940, dans un petit village reculé des Alpes, les filles ne sont pas supposées faire preuve de qualités sportives ni répondre à l''appel des cimes. mais un jour, le grand frère de Louise l''entraîne, contre l''avis de leur père, sur une paroi dangereuse où il reste bloqué. Et Louise le sauve. Dès lors, c''est avec les yeux d''une alpiniste qu''elle regarde les sommets qui l''entourent. En elle se révèlent le talent, l''autorité naturelle et la vraie générosité qui sont les qualités essentielles des guides de haute montagne. Louise débute sa carrière comme porteur sous les ordres d''Edouard Bruzel, un vieux guide tyrannique et brutal.

"These ten interlinked stories, set in California and seen through the lens of memory, chronicle the life of Abel Richards, a man who came of age in the late 1960s and witnessed much of the turmoil of the next decade: drugs, the "back to the earth" movement, experimentation with love and its permutations, a marriage not properly tended and allowed to founder. Set in the beautiful Santa Cruz mountains and portrayed with Robert Roper''s keen eye and disciplined prose, the tales play powerfully on the themes of memory, desire, and regret and explore the relationship between the sexes with compassion and insight. Whether recalling a friend lost to drugs, a marriage slipping into disarray, or the communal life of the 1960s, with its sexual freedom and economic and emotional dependence on drugs, Roper tells these stories with an honesty and richness that vividly bring back to life one of our pivotal eras while subtly holding it up to the judgment of time. The collection concludes with a remarkable pair of stories about a son who first comes to Richards'' attention eighteen years after his birth. Cuervo Tales is a marvelous achievement by a writer in full command of his material: unflinching, evocative, deeply moving. It will be enjoyed as much for its forceful storytelling as for its powerful portrayal of a period now as distant as the mountains of Atlantis."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

"In this modern-day Lady Chatterley''s Lover, Robert Roper examines the nature of modern love - a subject as fresh and provocative today as when D. H. Lawrence startled and captivated audiences over half a century ago. In its exploration of the boundary between the privileged life and the laws of the heart, The Trespassers offers an intriguing look at contemporary society and creates a powerful vision of erotic love." "Catherine Mansure lives a leisured life on her husband''s vast property in the California mountains while her husband, Rick, once a legendary figure at Berkeley, supervises his family''s corporation. Rick develops a debilitating illness and distances himself from a marriage that has already lost its way. When Catherine''s acquaintance with Henry Bascomb, a musician who makes his living growing marijuana on Mansure land, turns unexpectedly into a love affair, she must weigh her love against the comforts of her social standing, the scandal of a divorce, and even the love of her son." "With its lush, masterly prose, The Trespassers is a powerful novel as unsettling as it is deeply moving. Robert Roper''s talent, hailed in the reviews of his earlier books, is evident here in this brilliant retelling of one of the great masterpieces of twentieth-century literature."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

A young mountaineer in love with another climber faces the ultimate test of her life in the blue ice of the Himalayas.

Louis Sanders, a marijuana smuggler in California and Mexico, relates the story of his family and its conflict with a wealthy Mexican family