Red Sky at Morning: A Novel

“Red Sky at Morning is a minor marvel: it is a novel of paradox, of identity, of an overwhelming YES to life that embraces with wonder what we are pleased to call the human condition. In short, a work of art.”  — Harper Lee

Hailed by the Washington
Post Book World as “a sort of Catcher
in the Rye out West,” Richard
Bradford’s Red Sky at Morning is the
classic coming-of-age story set during World War II about the enduring spirit
of youth and the values in life that count.

In the summer of 1944, Frank
Arnold, a wealthy shipbuilder in Mobile, Alabama, receives his volunteer
commission in the U.S. Navy and moves his wife, Ann, and seventeen-year-old
son, Josh, to the family’s summer home in the village of Corazon Sagrado, high
in the New Mexico mountains. A true daughter of the Confederacy, Ann finds it impossible to cope with the quality of life in the largely
Hispanic village and, in the company of Jimbob Buel—an insufferable,
South-proud, professional houseguest—takes to bridge and sherry. Josh, on
the other hand, becomes an integral member of the Sagrado community, forging
friendships with his new classmates, with the town’s disreputable resident
artist, and with Amadeo and Excilda Montoya, the couple hired by his father to
care for their house. 

Josh narrates the story
of his fateful year in Sagrado and, with irresistibly deadpan, irreverent humor, describes the
events and people who influence his progress to maturity. Unhindered by his
mother's disdain for these "tacky, dusty little Westerners," Josh
comes into his own and into a young man's finely formed understanding of duty,
responsibility, and love. 

“A sort of Catcher in the Rye out West....What makes the book a true delight is the deadpan, irreverent humor with which Josh tells the story... No brief review can do justice to Mr. Bradford’s book.” - Washington Post Book World

“Bradford’s book has bite as well as beauty and graceful wit. . . . To my mind it is precisely what a novel ought to be--an entertainment, a book to read for the plain joy of reading. In short, a delight.” - H. Allen Smith, humorist

“A refreshing book, straightforward, funny, touching and, despite the caricatures and wisecracks and passed-over problems, true.” - New York Times Book Review

“Red Sky at Morning is a minor marvel: it is a novel of paradox, of identity, of an overwhelming YES to life that embraces with wonder what we are pleased to call the human condition. In short, a work of art.”  - Harper Lee

“A terribly funny book with some of the richest characters I’ve read about in some years.” - Groucho Marx