Hill Country Property

The prequel to Nothing to Lose, Hill Country Property has three sections. Roger Jackson, a one-time lawyer who has been reduced to photographing cheating spouses, narrates the novel and comments about the characters and episodes in each section. The first section deals with Henry, Roger’s father-in-law:  his running away from the West Texas oilfield in the 1930s, his return, his cowboying, his participation in the Normandy Invasion, and his return to Texas Hill Country, where he tries to capture the American Dream with a horse farm, a young wife, and an adopted boy and daughter.  The second sections deals with Becky Bolen, Henry’s wife.  She deserts the family to follow her own ambitions, goes to Taos in the 60s, earns a Ph.D., and writes letters to Henry, who does not reveal her whereabouts to her children. The last third of the novel covers Roger’s marriage into that family and the subsequent dissolution of that marriage.  As Roger attempts to win back his wife, he tells the story of his father in-law and tries to find his mother-in-law.