Juniper Town

"Juniper Town" is the story of a small high desert 1950s town that parallels the growth of young Steve White with the mission of two influential men from the East, Robert Pruitt, a banker, and Axel Baker, an attorney. During his school years young Steve experiences, a bullying nemesis, a secret puppy love for the girl next door, a cold-hearted mother who loves his older brother more, a friend tormented by the abuse of a priest, angst about the Russians and nuclear war, and average grades and talents amidst the backdrop of this nostalgic, quintessential American era. Likewise, Pruitt and Baker pursue their task, sponsored by a powerful, quasi-secret society from the East, to establish effective yet subtle control of the town's economy and credit, press, labor force, and politics, in a seamless conspiracy of manipulation. Opposing them is the owner of the local lumber mill, J. T. Holbrook, heretofore the town's most powerful, wealthy, and influential citizen, and Conn Sol, a mysterious new realtor in town some people refer to as 'Ameran, ' an allegedly non-human race which possesses unusual physical and emotional strengths. "Juniper Town" develops through the interaction of Steve White and his young friends: Dred Sol, Conn Sol's Ameran son; Bill Bone, Steve's life-long nemesis; Darlene Dickinson, Steve's unfulfilled love; Jackie Robinson, Steve's disillusioned Negro friend; Kenny Young, the abused altar boy; Gary Sanders, the loud mouth wise guy; with the adult players in the story: Robert Pruitt and Axel Baker, co-conspirators who install local nice guy Marion Strutt as their lackey mayor; J. T. Holbrook, the lumber king knocked down to size by blackmail; Conn Sol, the Ameran operator whose task is to derail Pruitt and Baker; Virl Saeger, Steve's cowboy friend and mentor; Skip Sanders, shady lumber salesman at the mill; Mary White, Steve's mother who struggles to endure the death of her oldest son Chuck in Korea; the Negro Robinsons and Crowes, th