Small Town America

From one of the bestselling western novelists of all time, comes another classic story. Templeton Lambeth had so desperately wanted a son - an heir to ride by his side through the vast, wild ranges just west of the Pecos River. But to his disappointment, his wife bore a girl. His hopes crushed and in denial, he decides to raise his daughter as if she were a boy. In honor of Lambeth's more successful brother, they named her: Terrill.

Clint Belmet's parents were killed in a Comanche raid when he was young, but that hasn't stopped him from taking a job leading freight caravans on the old Santa Fe Trail, from Saint Louis, Missouri, to Santa Fe, New Mexico - a route that goes right through Comanche territory. Here is the raw, primitive West of the early pioneers, great caravans of freighters rumbling across the deadly prairies, risking attack by Comanche.

Gracie sees a chance of fitting in at her South Carolina private school, until a "white trash"-themed Halloween party has her steering clear of the rich kids. Samuel's Tejano family has both stood up to oppression and been a source of it, but now he's ready to own his true sexual identity. A Puerto Rican teen in Utah discovers that being a rodeo queen means embracing her heritage, not shedding it...

Fifteen years after leaving Sleepy Bush Falls, Connecticut, Joe Goffman wrote a savage bestselling novel about his hometown. The book went on to become a hit movie, making Joe a pariah in the Falls, which was fine with him, since he never planned on going back. But when a family tragedy strikes, Joe is left with no choice. His return ignites a maelstrom of hostility among the town’s still enraged residents.

They are just about as bad and evil as outlaw gangs come. But in the end, they finally go straight.

Behind every act of domestic terrorism there is someone's child whose life took a radical turn for reasons that often remain mysterious. Camilla Hall is a case in point: a pastor's daughter from small-town Minnesota who eventually joined the ranks of radicals in the notorious Symbionese Liberation Army before dying in a shootout with Los Angeles Police in May 1974. How could a "good girl" become one of the most wanted domestic terrorists in the United States? Rachael Hanel tells her story here, revealing both the deep humanity and the extraordinary circumstances of Camilla Hall's life.

The story of a Civil War soldier finding his humanity in the face of horrible savagery. Emerging from the Civil War a shamed and broken man, Stephen Latch turns to a life of thievery and murder. Still hoping to uphold the values of the Confederacy, Latch sets his sights on the wealth of resources pouring westward from the northern United States, putting together a band of ruthless misfits to help him stake his claim of the riches of the caravans.

Ashford, Vermont, might look like your typical sleepy New England college town, but to the shadowy residents who live among the remains of its abandoned mills and factories, it's known as "Burntown". Eva Sandeski, known as "Necco" on the street, has been a part of this underworld for years, ever since the night her father, Miles, drowned in a flood that left her and her mother, Lily, homeless.

The Lindsay family has come west hoping to help the father, John, recover from an illness. When they arrive, they are induced to purchase Spanish Peaks Ranch, an abandoned United States military post surrounded by mountains. It seems like a perfect place to settle into their new life as ranchers. As they soon find out, though, this deserted fort is equally suited for both protection and imprisonment.

The lonely predicament of Carol Kennicott, caught between her desires for social reform and individual happiness, reflects the position in which America's turn-of-the-century "emancipated woman" found herself.

A dying man, Hank Peyton, tells his son Jerry Peyton that, after a lifetime of evil deeds, his only gift to his son will be his extremely valuable gun called The Voice of La Paloma. When Jerry is wrongfully accused of horse thievery, a cunning sheriff blackmails Jerry into stealing the gun from his father in exchange for a clean slate, even though the sheriff has already found the real horse thief.

Barney Dwyer is a gentle giant who has yet to find a place in the world. Capturing two notorious outlaws has made a hero of him, so much so that rancher Robert Parmelee offers him a job on his ranch to put a stop to persistent rustling. Taking the job promises an income sufficient for Barney to marry his sweetheart. But this promise for the future falls into jeopardy when the outlaws escape, determined to kill Barney.

A classic story of imperiled love on the western frontiers of 19th-century America. While a battle rages between two outlaw gangs in a remote Utah canyon, Jim Wales struggles to rescue Helen Herrick, who has been captured and held for ransom. Robbers' Roost tells the story of their personal struggle to escape the clutches of the murderous outlaws while simultaneously safeguarding their passion, one that is not likely to survive the beautiful, yet deadly, terrain and people of the old American West.

In 1971, a small-town high school baseball team from rural Illinois playing with hand-me-down uniforms and peace signs on their hats defied convention and the odds. Led by an English teacher with no coaching experience, the Macon Ironmen emerged from a field of 370 teams to become the smallest school in Illinois history to make the state final, a distinction that still stands. There, sporting long hair, and warming up to "Jesus Christ Superstar", the Ironmen would play a dramatic game that would change their lives forever.

"Have to keep that smile", said Booker Wright in the 1966 NBC documentary Mississippi: A Self-Portrait. At the time Wright was a waiter in a Whites-only restaurant and a local business owner who would become an unwitting icon of the civil rights movement. For he did the unthinkable: Before a national audience, he described what life was truly like for the Black people of Greenwood, Mississippi.

Summer, 1851. Racial tensions in America were higher than ever. The year before, President Millard Fillmore had passed the Fugitive Slave Act to return runaway slaves to the South. In February, Congress had established the reservation system, forcing Native Americans to leave their homelands. White Americans were strengthening dominance over people of color across the continent. In Oregon City, one biracial man named Jacob Vanderpool found himself in the crosshairs of this racist discrimination.

Andy Adams (1859-1935) was born to pioneer parents in Indiana, worked in Texas for a decade driving cattle, and settled in Colorado Springs, where he penned his cowboy narratives. The Log of a Cowboy chronicles a five-month drive of three thousand head of cattle from Brownsville, Texas, to the Blackfoot Indian Reservation in Montana. This classical work of fiction provides fascinating insights of everyday life on the Great Western Cattle Trail with a team of 12 cowhands, a cook, a horse wrangler and a foreman.

In Summer over Autumn, Howard Mansfield sifts through the commonplace and the forgotten to discover stories that tell us about ourselves and our place in the world - in this case, Hancock, New Hampshire.

For the first time since Blue Highways, Heat-Moon is back on the backroads. Roads to Quoz is his lyrical, funny, and touching account of a series of American journeys into small-town America.

Justice in Plain Sight is the story of a hometown newspaper in Riverside, California, that set out to do its job: tell readers about shocking crimes in their own backyard. But when judges slammed the courtroom door on the public, including the press, it became impossible to tell the whole story. Pinning its hopes on business lawyer Jim Ward, whom Press-Enterprise editor Tim Hays had come to know and trust, the newspaper took two cases to the US Supreme Court in the 1980s. Hays was convinced that the public - including the press - needed to bear witness to justice....