Prairie Sunset
Eric Wilder
Gondwana Press
ISBN: 978-1-4116-9248-0
180 pages
Prairie Sunset by Eric Wilder is a book that I
wish I had written! Most published books have enough intriguing and
entertaining pages to hold the readers’ attention even when they hit some
bland sections. However, in my opinion, there are no bland sections in
Prairie Sunset; the entire book is a great read! With each turn of the
page, readers will become more and more engrossed with the storyline and the
individual characters.
When readers are first introduced to John Warren, Sr.,
he seems to have given up on life after the death of his wife three years
earlier and a subsequent fall in which he broke his hip. Moving in with his
son and daughter-in-law, he had assumed the role of an invalid, shutting
himself in his room, barely talking, and refusing to join the others at
mealtime. Only when his twin granddaughters enter his room, do we see him
open up, talk, and show some emotion. Other times he appears unwilling to
embrace life.
The elderly man did not intervene when his son John,
Jr., who is an attorney, had him declared incompetent. Though fully aware
of what was going on around him, he made no effort to convey this; it just
didn’t seem worth the effort—not even when his home was sold and his assets
liquidated. However, late one night, after learning that his best friend
had died, and when John, Jr. told him that he was going to put him into an
old folks’ home, the old man packed a few belongings and walked out the door
into the elegant but snowy Tulsa neighborhood. Only two blocks from the
house, he met Attie, an attractive Native American woman who needed help to
get her recreational vehicle off a curb. After using a tire iron to bring
this about, she asked if he needed a ride somewhere. John Warren got into
the RV, leaving his suitcase on the sidewalk and began what was to be a
wondrous, twilight adventure.
A seemingly unlikely couple, John Warren was an
eighty-year-old widower who had lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma most of his life,
and she was a sixty-two-year-old widow named Attie Johnson who was born in
Tahlequah, Oklahoma and later moved to the Ozarks near Eureka Springs,
Arkansas. However, John and Attie had something in common—both were lonely
and looking for a way to deal with the pain of their pasts. John wanted to
revisit “the Magic Fountain” in Hot Springs, Arkansas, rekindling a memory
of years earlier. He was going there to “live” one last time. Attie offered
to take him to Hot Springs after a couple of detours which included playing
Bingo at Red Rock and gambling at the racetrack in Oklahoma City.
It wasn’t an easily traveled journey since John’s son,
concerned about his own reputation, had instigated a state-wide search for
his father. With the media involved, it quickly became apparent to the
couple that it would require some planning for John not to be “found.” But
along the way, many ordinary people demonstrated their willingness to do
extraordinary things to help these strangers elude the authorities. John,
who had a heart condition, called a physician whom he had once helped, and
asked the doctor to call in a prescription for him at a designated pharmacy.
Attie and John, holding hands, had picked up the medicine, not knowing if
they would be met by authorities. They weren’t!
Yes, the runaway and his new companion were having the
time of their lives, even with the many tense-filled moments of nearly being
caught. John who had left on his own accord, nevertheless felt like a
fugitive—one whom Attie took delight in aiding and comforting. She was
teaching John how to live again, and he was making her feel needed and
appreciated. The two of them quickly fell in love, and it was a wondrous,
magical, and miraculous love that reawakened the adventurous spirits of
their youth. All their senses were alive, and they continued to taste and
explore everything within their reach. During their journey, the two of them
even went skinny dipping in a waterfall pool with another young couple. John
had won money playing Bingo, and he had also picked a winner at the
racetrack when he bet on “Prairie Sunset.” He chose this horse because a
beautiful sunset in western Oklahoma had been the loveliest vision that he’d
ever seen—that is until he had meet Attie. When John told her this, he also
whispered that this had been the happiest week of his life.
John found the Magic Fountain but not in Hot Springs;
instead, it was in the mountains of western Arkansas where a woman name
Attie taught him how to live before he died.
Prairie Sunset by Eric Wilder is an excellent
book, telling a story that will linger in my mind for a long, long time. It
is extremely well-written, and the characters have been brought to life with
such vividness that readers will respond to their unique personalities with
strong emotions. If I had to choose one novel to read this year, it would
be this one. Consider it a Must Read!
Bettie Corbin Tucker
For IP Book Reviewers
06/30/06
