The Cut of Pride
Jeff Baker should have kept going in the fall of 1955. Only days out of jail and in need of money, the aspiring writer takes a job on a small , isolated mink ranch on the Oregon Coast. Jeff soon realizes that what is supposed to be simple, temporary employment is going to change his life in ways he could not have foreseen.
Ranch owners, Rose and West Helner, live with their two disabled sons in a run-down house on the desolate property. The long-married couple has a scarred history and live an alienated co-existence. Jeff soon realizes that Rose uses the mink ranch as a way to bind her husband to a subservient role and keep her wheelchair and couch-bound sons dependent on her. In the midst of this turmoil, Jeff finds romance with Rassel, the neighbor's daughter, but their relationship is soon tested when she asks Jeff to leave and take her with him.
Isolated, trapped, and holding two secrets close to his breast, Jeff longs to go back to the real world and become a serious writer. Sometimes walking away is not easy.
About James A. Misko (Anchorage, Alaska Author)
James A. Misko was born in Ord, Nebraska, then moved to Oregon and Alaska, completing what for him was a natural bridge to the frontier. He has worked as an oil field roughneck, a logger, mink rancher, truck driver, sawmill hand, teacher, journalist, real estate broker, and writer. With numerous published articles and five novels to his credit, he continues to work at being the best author of fiction he can be. Jim and his wife Patti live in Alaska during the summer and California in the winter.
