Suns Go Down - Softcover

Sikes, Shirley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0897452402 ISBN 13: 9780897452403

Publisher: Sunflower Univ Pr, 2000

Synopsis

O. Henry Award Winner First Novel!

Shirley Sikes, a retired banking executive and former Board member of the Kansas Banking Association, knows about middle-America's pressures firsthand. She lived through World War II and its aftermath.

A successful businesswoman in her own right, the Sikes' small-town bank survived one rural crisis after another, as family after family lost their land held for generations. Sikes watched rural towns decline from being hubs of railroad, ranching, and farming activity to decaying, sleepy villages.

Sikes' novel, Suns Go Down, looks at the relationships of one of these families, set in the 1950s era, whose existence has been threatened by unstoppable postwar change . . . a family whose enterprising ancestors had helped develop the small communities on the Western Prairie.

The Lutz family, in Suns Go Down, was one of those family units with everything to lose as the postwar industrial wave began to swallow up their lives and their land.

About this title

About the Author

Shirley Sikes, award-winning author of thirty short stories and articles, has completed her first historical novel, Suns Go Down, the story of a prominent Kansas ranching family, set in the lush Flint Hills of Kansas during the 1950s. A native Kansan, Sikes' roots extend deep in the state.

A published short-story writer, Sikes has received an O.Henry Award, five listings from Best American Short Stories (including one story on their Roll of Honor), and a listing from the Pushcart Press as "One of 100 Outstanding Writers in the U.S." She was a semi-finalist in the 1999 Iowa Short Fiction Awards and has a story included in A Line of Cutting Women, an anthology of "22 years of best publishing," published in 1998 by Calyx, the nationally respected journal of fine literature and art.

A retired banking executive, Shirley Sikes served on the Board of Directors of the Kansas Banker's Association from 1991-1994. She is the former President and CEO of the Leonardville (Kansas) State Bank. Now of Tucson, Sikes has been active in Creative Writing workshops at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and has been a featured reader for its Writers at Work series. She has been a workshop leader for the Kansas Arts Commission, and in April of 1999 was invited to read at the prestigious Associated Writer's Program in Albany, New York. She is an Associate Member of the Western Writers of America.

Review

Suns Go Down is a masterfully written saga covering four generations. . . . Sikes gets into the head of all of her leading characters and presents them from the inside out. Her skill with characterization, dialogue, and point-of-view makes . . . a well-written novel . . . the story of a family struggling to deal with pressures from without and within, the story of America arriving at the middle of the 20th century with all of its 19th-century baggage an exciting and moving story by a master storyteller. -- Richard Shelton, Regents Professor of English University of Arizona, Tucson, Author of Going Back to Bisbee

Suns Go Down is a true entertainment in the best tradition of the family saga . . . an insightful journey into a time and a place in America's heartland, and into the lives of the very remarkable yet very real people who populated it. . . . Shirley Sikes' name should, and will, become a familiar one to anyone who truly cares about good fiction. -- Robert Houston, Professor of Creative Writing/English, University of Arizona, Tucson, Author of Bisbee'17 and The Nation Thief

Edition details

• Publisher: Sunflower Univ Pr
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0897452402
• ISBN 13: 9780897452403
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 394