The Dark Between The Stars

In the summer of 1923, eighteen-year old Elijah Cockburn is enjoying typical small-town Midwestern life in Menninger, North Dakota, when a confrontation forces him and his friends Merle and Pearl and their cousin Axel to hitch a freight and head into the American West. Awaiting them are Wobblies, railroad bulls, bootleggers, the Jack Dempsey-Tommy Gibbons title fight, hobo jungles, pickpockets, President Warren G. Harding, and San Francisco, where Elijah's brother Josh shows him a new way to look at life. Memorable characters, such as Twig, Bear, Boss, Lucretia, Hiram and his dog JJ, Miss Hoar, Black Betty, White Hair, and Duke inhabit the novel.

Kenneth C. Gardner, Jr., was born in New Rockford, N.D., and was raised on the drift prairies in the central part of that state. He has been a teacher for over forty years: at Kenmare (N.D.) High School in 1966-67 and at Drayton (N.D.) High School ever since. He and his wife Carol raised three children-Kathy, Kenny, and Jeff-and each has gone on to a successful career. He is the author of a non-fiction book, Echoes of Distant School Bells: A History of the Drayton Public School, in two volumes, and of a novel, The Song Is Ended, also published by iUniverse (2011).