ROBIN STACKPOLE is an autobiographical novel, the story of a boy growing up in the first half of the twentieth century at a time when society was gentle and work was hard. The rewards of life were subtle in comparison with those of today, yet often more evident against the backdrop of a less complex society. Despite important responsibilities to the family adolescents harbored many of the same uncertainties as those of today.
The novel is historical in place and time as well as in the characteristics of the people who inhabit it. The time is 1913-1934, plus an epilogue that reaches to the end of the century.
In short summary: The book begins with memories of early childhood. Love for a girl becomes adolescent misery under torture because of separation. Then come the Great Depression, many mistakes and losses, recovery, college, adult love, and at last reconciliation between or among all involved.
In greater detail: The story begins with the war, followed by several unsatisfactory excursions from central Kansas into Colorado and New Mexico in failed attempts to improve the family's living conditions. Hardships increase after a drought drives the Stackpoles back to Kansas, but before Robin is through high school the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression are upon them. Robin makes terrible mistakes and must pay a heavy price for them until his brother's love helps pull him out of depression. An embezzler guesses wrong on the wheat market and Robin's college savings are lost. He works for two years, 1931-1933, to save enough money to start college with $100 cash.
Late-learned knowledge about male sexuality adds color and energy to Robin's struggle to reach his goals. His problems appear to be solved when he finds Molly at college, but a severe case of the mumps leave him impotent. Fortunately, it is only temporary. With Molly's love he avoids the kind of depression that nearly drove him to suicide three years earlier.
Robin's attachment to the youngest aunt on his mother's side of the family helps him for several years during his hardships. It is because of her actions that in the Epilogue he goes to the Virginia archives and discovers the details of a family secret that casts the long struggle of his grandparents into a heroic mold.
Both of Robin's great loves for two women reign in his final thoughts as the novel winds down in the closing pages.
Like the hero of his first novel, Maynard Fox, of Pennsylvania Dutch and Church of the Brethren (Dunkard) extraction, grew up on western farms in the early years of this century. His family, like the Stackpoles, was poor in worldly goods but rich in reverence for the King James Bible and proper English usage of the time; a credit to excellent teachers, most of whom had attended McPherson College in Kansas. Mr. Fox received A. B. and M. S. degrees (1937, 1939) from Fort Hays State University. Following naval duty (1944-46), he moved to South Dakota where he served as professor of English at South Dakota State College in Brookings (now South Dakota State University). He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Colorado (1963) and soon moved to Durango, where he served for several years as a professor and chairman of the English and Theatre Department at Fort Lewis College. He now lives with his wife, Elva, in Arizona.
Of the book, he writes: "Early in my life I began to see that the histories of both my parents' families were unusual. As years passed, I began to imagine how the facts could be transformed into a novel, but visual problems delayed me in beginning the actual writing until I had retired. Then the potential novel tormented me into developing a major and a minor plot. At last, in July 1994, I sat down at my typewriter with my now mastered visual aids and completed the first draft in 25 days. That draft remains today as the basic text."
