Allen Wier: 2 books

A Place For Outlaws starts off as a family novel, as warmly evocative and intimate over time as an album of family photographs, and imperceptibly, turns into a shocker, grounded in subterfuge, perversity, and violence. The overall movement brings good and evil face-to-face in an unexpected way to contend for the soul of a woman then her son.

Departing as Air chronicles the memories of Jessie, now old and widowed, as she nears the end of her life and looks back on her two marriages, her emotional breakdown and recovery, and her ultimate acceptance--and celebration--of life.