In 1926 Indiana, when newspaper reporter James Chase receives a telegram informing him his estranged father passed away in Los Angeles, James is surprised to receive a personal invitation to the funeral. In his forty-five years, James has no memory of his father, John Chase and no idea why he was invited to the funeral. However, out of respect and curiosity, James flies to Los Angeles to attend the funeral.
James is met by a Hollywood reporter who takes him to his father’s farm house and orange groves in the countryside in Orange County. His father’s butler, a black man named Cyrus, introduces James to Wyatt Earp and western. movie star Tom Mix, two of James’ father’s closest friends. An even bigger surprise awaits James when his father’s lawyer tells James that he inherits his father’s orange groves and all his wealth if he stays in the farmhouse, along with his wife and two children for one month.
James agrees to the terms and sends for his family. His father has also left him his journals, beginning in 1855 and continuing to his death in 1926.
James reads the journals and learns about his father’s extraordinary life. From the age of ten when he shot a bounty hunter to save a runaway slave’s life (Cyrus’s father, George) to his time as a soldier in the Civil War, to the years working on the Transcontinental Railroad, to his many years as a US Marshal, James learns not just about his father, but why his father gave him to his aunt to raise when he was just a baby.
By the time James reads the final journal written before his father’s death, the remarkable life his father led has a profound effect on James, especially when he learns that he has a sister named Elizabeth.
After learning about his father’s life, James decides to stay in the home his father left him and visits his sister Elizabeth, who is a doctor in Los Angeles. James not only forgives his father for sending him to live with his aunt, but James realizes that his father is the last of his kind in what was once the great American West.
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
James is met by a Hollywood reporter who takes him to his father’s farm house and orange groves in the countryside in Orange County. His father’s butler, a black man named Cyrus, introduces James to Wyatt Earp and western. movie star Tom Mix, two of James’ father’s closest friends. An even bigger surprise awaits James when his father’s lawyer tells James that he inherits his father’s orange groves and all his wealth if he stays in the farmhouse, along with his wife and two children for one month.
James agrees to the terms and sends for his family. His father has also left him his journals, beginning in 1855 and continuing to his death in 1926.
James reads the journals and learns about his father’s extraordinary life. From the age of ten when he shot a bounty hunter to save a runaway slave’s life (Cyrus’s father, George) to his time as a soldier in the Civil War, to the years working on the Transcontinental Railroad, to his many years as a US Marshal, James learns not just about his father, but why his father gave him to his aunt to raise when he was just a baby.
By the time James reads the final journal written before his father’s death, the remarkable life his father led has a profound effect on James, especially when he learns that he has a sister named Elizabeth.
After learning about his father’s life, James decides to stay in the home his father left him and visits his sister Elizabeth, who is a doctor in Los Angeles. James not only forgives his father for sending him to live with his aunt, but James realizes that his father is the last of his kind in what was once the great American West.
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
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