a novel, by Charles Brashear These are the books of creative prose that I have published. Scroll through them if you like, or click on the title of interest. Jump to Works-in-progress to see what I'm doing these days.
Killing Cynthia Ann, a novel
Comeuppance at Kicking Horse Casino, and Other Stories
Contemporary Insanities, Short Fictions
Brain, Brawn, and Will: The Turmoils and Adventures of Jeff Ross
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a novel, by Charles Brashear
Texas Christian University Press
Cloth, $21.50 ISBN 0-87565-209-3
Excerpts from some reviews:
from Midland (TX) Reporter-Telegram, Nov 7, 1999:
The story of Cynthia Ann Parker has become legend. Kidnapped
from Parker's Fort near Mexia by raiding Comanches in 1836, she
was completely assimilated into the Noconi band. She married
tribal leader, Peta Nocona, and bore him two sons, Quanah and
Pecos, and a daughter, Toh-Tsee-Ah.
Late in 1860, she and toddler Topsannah, as the whites called her, were recaptured by Texas Rangers and returned to "civilization" and the extended Parker clan. Cynthia Ann never adapted to white culture. She was shunted from one Parker family member to another.
Convinced she was a captive of the Texans, Cynthia Ann was determined to escape to the high plains and the Comanche way. The Parkers neither cared for nor understood Cynthia Ann's obsession with returning to her homeland and her people.
[Unconsciously, and from the best of motives, the Texans were systematically and psychologically
torturing Cynthia Ann to death.]
from Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Sunday, Dec 5, 1999:
Charles Brashear is a conscientious author who is careful of his sources. What he's done is search
out the most authentic records available, then build a novel by filling in imaginary details of
emotions, relationships, conversation and background. The fiction device gives the reader a
historical overview of the period, plus a vivid picture of a woman who lived with constant,
unhealable heartache.... I like the placement of historical notation along the side margins very
much. They are less disruptive, easier to go to and return from, than footnotes at the bottom of the
page.
from Judy Alter, The Bookish Frog, Fall 1999:
... an innovative novel about Cynthia Ann Parker. Just when we thought there are no new twists to
that old story, Charles Brashear proved us wrong--in a novel with footnotes. (Don't ever say were
are afraid to try something new!)
from Amarillo News-Globe, Sunday, Dec 12, 1999, p. 19D:
. . . novels particularly suited for fireside reading . . . "Killing Cynthia Ann" by Charles Brashear....
this new book focuses on her life after her return to Anglo culture. Though presented as a novel,
the story is well-researched. The book is even annotated, unusual for fiction.
from Waco Tribune-Herald, Saturday, Nov 6, 1999 (Brazos Living, p. 8B)
Brashear believes our interest in Cynthia Ann Parker more than a century after her death stems
from a variety of reasons: our disbelief that someone could prefer another way of life to the
American way; our collective guilt in the ultimate fate of American Indian cultures; and an
unconscious desire for a simpler life, such as American Indians practiced.
"Cynthia Ann's story of wildness keeps haunting us because we see in it a gross injustice that has
never been righted. They killed the wildness in her, which we half suspect may have been the better
part. And, while we may not be personally responsible, we feel a sort of communal guilt for the
wrong done her," he explained.
from Roundup, the Magazine of the Western Writers of America, v.7, #3, Feb 2000, p. 32
also "Bookshelf," Amarillo News-Globe, Jan 30, 2000, p. 12D
Every child born and raised in the West knows the story. It's been the subject of numerous novels.
Captured by the Comanches from Parker's Fort in Texas in 1836, Cynthia Ann Parker "was
completely assimilated into the Noconi band" of the Comanches. She married Peta Nocona and gave
birth to two sons, Quanah and Pecos, and a daughter, Toh-Tsee-Ah, called Topsannah. She was
rescued by Sul Ross and his Texas Rangers in 1860. Her daughter died of a fever, and Cynthia Ann
died not long after of what the romantics called a broken heart. Not many realize that Cynthia Ann
and her daughter lived nearly a decade with her Parker relatives in North Texas. The man who
interpreted Cynthia Ann's Comanche and broken Spanish, Horace Jones, is the first to feel
sympathy for the terrified woman.
As her uncle, Isaac Parker, and others questioned her, Horace knew "that these officers and men--kind-hearted and benevolent though they thought they were--really wanted, deep down, to kill what was essential in this woman. In the center of their souls was something their minds didn't even know was there, something with a will and a life of its own. It wanted to kill the Indian in this woman.
Her Uncle Isaac promises to help find her sons and to love them. "It is my holy covenant to you." Cynthia understood "that such a promise was like a treaty. But treaties had not been good for the Comanches. ... Uncle Isaac was putting her in a painful quandary-- his treaty would not let her be Comanche, but she doubted if she could ever become white."
Brashear creates Cynthia Ann's daily life so realistically that one nods and says, "Yes, it must have happened just that way." We see the frustration of Isaac and the rest of the Parkers as Cynthia Ann grieves for her sons and attempts to hold on to her identity as a Comanche. "That's how they did it, a tiny step at a time. They got you to do their work, to say their words, think their thoughts, and then they had your heart. You were no longer yourself."
Cynthia Ann goes from her uncle's home to that of her brother, Silas, but life does not improve. She is a savage, an Indian, a Comanche who won't try to be anything else. She is shuttled from relative to relative, none of whom understand her grief. When her daughter dies of a fever, it is also the end of Cynthia Ann's existence, although she lives for several more years. Brashear describes Cynthia Ann's increasing depression, until finally she stops eating. She calls herself Goes Blank, which she literally does. Technically, a fever of some unknown origin killed Cynthia Ann Parker, but one can die of a broken heart in any number of ways. For Cynthia Ann, it was a fever.
A depressing, sad tale of misunderstanding and broken hearts, with a powerful central character.
The book, though fiction, includes footnotes and historical and bibliographic notes.
Ask at your bookstore for ISBN 0-87565-209-3 or order from
Texas A&M University Press Consortium
4354 TAMUS,
College Station, TX 77843-4354
www.tamu.edu/upress 800/826-8911
FAX: 888/617-2421
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COMEUPPANCE AT KICKING HORSE
CASINO 
and Other Stories
by
Charles Brashear
This collection of stories is a mix of historical and contemporary
fictions. The historical stories provide a background for the
contemporary stories, so that the entire collection becomes a loose
chronicle of the Native American experience since the European
settlement of North America. A wide range of tribes is
represented--Powhatan, Cherokee, Creek, Comanche, Lakota, Navajo, Ute, Keres, Ácoma, Zuni, and
an unnamed southern California tribe. Each story highlights some individual's quandry--and often
alienation--in negotiating and adapting to a face to face encounter with the whites.
"There's no short story writer I enjoy more than Charles Brashear. His eye for detail, his ear
for dialog, and his respect for the often complicated histories of Indian America are
unmatched."
--Joseph Bruchac, III (Abenaki), Storyteller and Writer
"Comeuppance at Kicking Horse Casino and Other Stories is a powerful blending of voices from a perspective that is both timely and as old as the People of Turtle Island. Charlie Brashear is a storyteller exraordinaire and his book will delight and teach readers from ages eight to eighty. I highly recommend this work."
--Lee Francis (Laguna Pueblo), Ph.D.,
[Late] National Director, WordCraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers, and
Director of Native American Studies, University of New Mexico.
$15.00 ISBN 0-935626-51-4 (paperback)
Ask at your bookstore, or order from:
American Indian Studies Center Publications
3220 Campbell Hall, Box 951548
University of California
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1548
Phone: (310) 206-7508; Fax: (310) 206-7060
Email: aiscpubs@ucla.edu
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Short Fictions
by Charles Brashear
Each of these short fictions treats some aspect of everyday
life that is common enough, but from some eccentric
perspective could be considered an insanity--the cruelty with
which we "sane" people treat autism; the little "itches" we
torture each other with; the ego-centric, sexual fantasies we
trick ourselves with; the artifices we use to present ourselves
to the world; the ogres of our nightmares and dreams; the
games we play on the young, the aged, the unusual, the
famous, and (as a nation) on each other and other nations.
The theme that runs through all these fictions makes this a
coherent book, not just a collection of miscellaneous stories. Our insanities are greed, pretentions,
the exercise of privilege, the failure of our compassion and understanding, disrespect for those who
are even a little different from us, the abuse of power.
Foreword
by Bill Madigan and Mark Burns
The Existential philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, said we all despair; we all have a disease that is a "sickness unto death." Charles Brashear's characters in Contemporary Insanities are victims of this disease. In some cases, his characters actually die of this "sickness." In others, the malady leads to mental collapse. Many of his characters do manifest a clarity of vision, a certain sanity in a complex and oppressive world. But, ironically, their sensitivity to truth does not help them cope with the "contemporary insanities" they are immersed in. The result is a breakdown of individual confidence and a loss of courage.
Brashear brightens these darker themes by lightening his stories with some quirky, engaging characters: Marvin Monroe in his Presley-esque polyester; a Texan looking for Bogart in the Sierra Madres; Andrew Zebuson wishing to hurtle over the Pacific rim; Indians dressed incongruously as so many Gainsborough "Blueboys."
Several of Brashear's main characters also conceal a Walter Mitty-like secret self. These characters carry on an often humorous private internal dialogue, which is the result of an inability to communicate anxieties and release emotions. Brashear's characters share a darker humor than Thurber's, a heavier hopelessness, but they also seem entombed in their insular, private worlds.
Brashear's intense physical naturalism both shocks and attracts the reader. A graphic sexuality surrounds many of these quirky characters who seem gelded by fears and miscommunication. "Andrew Zebuson's Finger," "Explicit Language," and "Our Imaginary Itch," among others, contain this sexual tension.
Fears and miscarriage of communication are central to Contemporary Insanities. Each story depicts characters alienated from themselves, others, and society. Our own difficulty in asserting ourselves against the real impersonal machine of modern culture moves us to empathize with Brashear's characters. We all suffer their inertia, an inertia which often severely frustrates us. We empathize with characters like Granny, Toby, and Andrew Zebuson who sense their control slipping away, but we also would like to empower them to act. We as readers find ourselves feeling both compassion and exasperation for the characters' dilemmas.
In short, these stories and characterizations engage us in a dialogue with our own conditions. Are we the "window" people in "Granny's Mourners"-- concerned, but too impotent to act? Are we the numb pedestrian readers in "Supervising the News," who are unaffected by the most horrific human tragedies? Or, are we even so interpersonally paralyzed that we can't even communicate with our lovers, as in the case of Daryl Andrews? Do we suffer from "the sickness unto death"?
Brashear's Contemporary Insanities makes us wonder.
$9.95
Ask at your bookstore for ISBN 1-877947-11-3, or order from:
The Press of MacDonald & Reinecke
P.O.Box 840
Arroyo Grande, CA 93421-0840
(mail orders add $2 postage)
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Brain, Brawn, and Will:
The Turmoils and Adventures of Jeff Ross.
By Charles Ross Brashear
Jeff Ross was a quintessential 19th century man. As a child in Savannah, Tennessee, he lay on the bank of the Tennessee River and watched the Battle of Shiloh. A few years later, he rode in a vigilante party that gunned down his father's murderer. In this way, he learned early that violence was a socially approved way of achieving personal goals.
At the same time, he went to college and graduated from Cumberland University Law School in 1872 at the head of his class. He then embarked upon a career in which the mind was the instrument of social progress.
Thus, his personality was formed by the twin and contradictory forces that have permeated American culture from the beginning-- violence and intellect.
He served for a time as Attorney General of his district in Tennessee, but lost his re-election bid. Perhaps in disappointment, perhaps because the travel bug had already bit him, he "ran away from" his law practice and home in 1878, at the age of 27. He traveled for a time in New England with a circus, running a "panorama" side show and hawking a "magic solder" for mending pots and pans. He hitch-hiked, walked, and bicycled through Europe for a couple of years, then shipped for Rio de Janeiro on a Norwegian freighter that was almost destroyed in a hurricane. After a bout with Yellow Fever, he led exploring parties into the wild interior of Brazil.
He took a job, running a mule train to supply railroad-building enterprises. Soon, he had worked his way up to transportation chief, then to construction chief, eventually to a licensed civil engineer, who actually designed and built railroads and bridges. Everywhere he went, he wrote long, interesting letters, to entertain and inform the folks back home.
In 1893, he got involved in the Brazilian revolution-- on both sides: he sold to each, what he had discovered from the other. When the police came looking for him, he conned the American Consul in Rio into smuggling him out of the country. In New York, he wrote articles in support of the revolution, then bought a boat-load of munitions for the Brazilian government and hired a crew of rebels to transport it. He wrote to his mother: "A certain amount of turmoil and adventure are essential to my happiness."
After the revolution collapsed, he returned to Savannah, Tennessee, and became a gentleman farmer, town character, curmudgeon, and philosopher of sorts. He once proposed that "the world" should dam Gibraltar, drain the Mediterranean, and claim a continent of naturally irrigated farm land that would have fed the world for many generations to come. "It would work, too," he told a Memphis reporter in 1924, "if we had the brain, brawn, and will to accomplish it, just as the Panama Canal was accomplished."
This book is a story of his remarkable life, told largely through his own letters, essays, fragmentary
novels, etc. It contains a dozen photographs, some from the 1880s in South America.
For an electronic version of Brain, Brawn, and Will, go to www.1stbooks.com and search for author's name: $3.95
Published in 2001 by 1stbooks Library.
Ask at your bookstore for ISBN 0-75963-364-9; 6"x9" Paperback: $19.95
Or order from Charlie:
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