THE STORY: The play begins by introducing the next generation of Robedauxs in the person of Horace's son, Horace Jr., who comes home from school to find that his maternal grandfather, Henry Vaughn, has died suddenly of a heart attack. From this poi

A young girl's simplistically touching poetic musing on the death of her grandfather, who she affectionately calls "Papa."

"The play begins by introducing the next generation of Robedauxs in the person of Horace's son, Horace Jr., who comes home from school to find that his maternal grandfather, Henry Vaughn, has died suddenly of a heart attack. From this point, two main storylines are traced in the play. One deals with young Horace's coming to terms with the concepts of life, death and familial relationships. He finds that his mother, Elizabeth, is expecting another baby; he listens to, and asks many questions about, the widely contrasting accounts of his two grandfathers; and he endures the fussing of his paternal grandmother, who's fearful that his love of reading will make him too introspective and "ruin him" for the real world. He must also come to grips with the drowning of Gertrude, a young black girl who was his confidante and friend. The other storyline concerns "Brother" Vaughn, Henry Vaughn's dissolute son, who, in the short time during which he has control, heads his late father's farms and other holdings on a course toward rapid ruin. When his mother takes back control of the estate, Brother heads off to Galveston, where he subsequently kills a man in a drunken brawl. Through all of this, Horace Sr. maintains his own counsel, although he stands up to his mother concerning his son's love of reading, and he comforts his wife, Elizabeth, through the crises affecting her family. But he refrains, even when asked, from interfering in the family's affairs and, as the play ends, the suggestion is strong that things are subtly, but inexorably, beginning to flow his way." -- Publisher's website.

A man mourning his alcoholic father faces a paradox: to pay tribute, lay scorn upon, or pour a drink. A wrenching, dazzling, revelatory debut Weaving between the preparations for his father's funeral and memories of life on both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border, Obed Silva chronicles his father's lifelong battle with alcoholism and the havoc it wreaked on his family. Silva and his mother had come north across the border to escape his father’s violent, drunken rages. His father had followed and danced dangerously in and out of the family’s life until he was arrested and deported back to Mexico, where he drank himself to death, one Carta Blanca at a time, at the age of forty-eight. Told with a wry cynicism, a profane, profound anger, an antic, brutally honest voice, and a hard-won classical frame of reference, Silva channels the heartbreak of mourning while wrestling with the resentment and frustration caused by addiction. The Death of My Father the Pope is a fluid and dynamic combination of memoir and an examination of the power of language—and the introduction of a unique and powerful literary voice.

Explains what death is, what happens at a funeral, and how a funeral service is a way of saying goodbye to a dead person.

"A family is a remarkable thing, isn't it? You belong. And then you don't. It passes you by. Unless you start a family of your own." The last two plays of Horton Foote's Orphans' Home Cycle both expand and contract the circle of a family that unifies all nine of the plays. In Cousins, an operation on Horace Robedaux's mother reunites, in person and in memory, the many Robedaux relatives (one of whom speaks the lines quoted above), and in the almost comic proliferation of cousins that results, the orphaned Horace is joined across time and space to a family that seems never to end. The Death of Papa returns the cycle to its origins, with the death of Horace's father-in-law. Far from ending the story, however, Papa's death regenerates the complexity of families and their survival, as his son bravely but foolishly tries to assume control of the land that supports his family's life.

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln is a central drama of the American experience. Its impact is felt to this day, and the basic story is known to all. Anthony Pitch's thrilling account of the Lincoln conspiracy and its aftermath transcends the mere facts of that awful night during which dashing actor John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in the head and would-be assassin Lewis Payne butchered Secretary of State William Seward in the bed of his own home. "They Have Killed Papa Dead!" transports the reader to one of the most breathtaking moments in history, and reveals much about the stories, passions, and times of those who shaped this great tragedy. Virtually every word of Anthony Pitch's account is based on primary source material: quotes from previously unpublished documents, diaries, letters, and journals. With an unwavering fidelity to historical accuracy, Pitch provides confirmation of threats against the president-elect's life as he traveled to Washington by train for his first inauguration, and a vivid personal account of John Wilkes Booth being physically restrained from approaching Lincoln at his second inauguration. Perhaps most chillingly, details come to light about conditions in the special prison where the civilian conspirators accused of participating in the Lincoln assassination endured tortuous conditions in extreme isolation and deprivation, hooded and shackled, before and even during their military trial. Pitch masterfully synthesizes the findings of his prodigious research into a tight, gripping narrative that adds important insights to our national story.