A guide to the work
The Sonoran Quartet looks at social crises, the passage of wealth, faith, evolution, and the unstable boundary between private life and the public world.
The Sonoran Quartet
Set in a suburb of Phoenix, each novel approaches the meeting point between private conviction and public consequence from a different direction.
Distraught at the death of his wife of nearly 70 years and unhappy with his children, a retired industrialist decides to disinherit his family in favor of his church. But the pastor fears the consequences should the church acquire the entire inheritance and the family be impoverished.
Attempting to be called to the pulpit of a megachurch founded by his father, a young man who wishes his ministry to be a collaborative effort confronts the determined opposition of others who believe in the necessity of hierarchy and the wisdom of church authorities.
In a school system, a biology teacher battles with others who believe that God’s presence in the world should be recognized in the science classroom.
A School Board decision which represents a covert attempt to undermine the constitutional separation of church and state leads to an attempt to recall those members of the board involved in the effort.
Place the novel in context
Currently availableWho will bank the millions after Louie Duquesne dies—his quarrelsome offspring with their dark moods and age-old resentments, or his friend and comforter Pastor Mike Grant, whose church has racked up unsurmountable debt?
The Duquesne siblings gather in the family home to lash out and lay blame as their father faces his final days, while the pastor, waiting anxiously, is tormented by a shameful secret of his own.
In this way, Private Property tells a tale of private convictions and individual circumstances taking the place of a more mature deliberation over the culturally critical act of wealth passing from generation to generation.
Private Property is the only volume of The Sonoran Quartet currently available.
The earlier trilogy
Based on two years of participant/observer research in Dubuque, Iowa, these three novels explore the critical roles that democracy plays in our evolving nation.
Behind the trilogy
After obtaining permission from the Dubuque city council—so long as the city in my work wasn’t to be called Dubuque—I began two years of research. Among many other activities, I rode with the police, slept in one of the firehouses, and was a participant/observer in the wastewater treatment and water plants. I watched the city build a dog track on an island in the Mississippi River through the middle of winter. I established a relationship with a local meatpacker, where I spent many hours, and also with a Catholic deacon, who became a friend as we toured the local motherhouses and talked about the religion, Dubuque a Catholic city. All this served as the basis for my trilogy.
An attempt is made to save an old-line meatpacker, on the verge of bankruptcy, by selling it to its employees.
Jackson has a reputation of being hostile to blacks, very few living there, and so the city council sets out to change the image of the community by attracting black professionals to the city. An election is mounted to recall the mayor, who is leading the attempt to introduce more racial diversity to the city.
Based on snowmelt and heavy rains, a massive spring flood threatens Jackson, confronting the city, as the Mississippi River rises and the rains continue, with the question of whether a last-minute effort should be made to raise the floodwall that already exists.
The Sonoran Quartet is a four-book series set in a suburb of Phoenix. It is concerned with social crisis, public and private life, evolution, faith, generational wealth, and the fate of our species.
Private Property launches The Sonoran Quartet.
The Loss of Certainty is an earlier trilogy comprising Jackson, The Gamble, and River Rising, set in Jackson, Iowa.
Recurring concerns include social crisis, public and private life, evolution, faith, generational wealth, and the fate of our species.
A question beyond the page?