Missouri Boy

'Sally of Missouri' is a romance novel written by Rose Emmett Young. At the start of the story a young man stopped his horse on the crest of the Tigmore Hills, in the Ozark Uplift, and as he raised in his stirrups, looked the country through and through, as though he must see into its very heart. In the brilliant mid-afternoon light the Southwest unrolled below him and around him in a ragged bigness and an unconquered loneliness. As far as the eye could reach tumbled the knobs, the flats, the waste weedy places, the gullies, the rock-pitted sweeps of table-land and the timbered hills of the Uplift. The buffalo grass trembled across the lowlands in long, shaking billows that had all the effect of scared flight. From the base of the Tigmores a line of river bottom stretched westward, and beyond the bottom curved a pale, quiet river. In the distance wraiths of blue smoke falteringly bespoke the presence of people and cabins; on a cleared hill an object that might be horse or dog or man was silhouetted, small and vague; and in the farthest west the hoister of a deserted zinc mine cut up against the sky a little lonely way. The near and dominant things were constantly those tremulous, fleeing billows of grass, the straight strong trees, the sullen rocks, the silent, shivering water.

An autobiographical account of twin boys growing up in a small town in Missouri.

Engaging Missouri is the epic drama of a powerful but tragic love affair that takes place in Arkansas in the 1880s. Based on actual events, this historical fiction details the efforts of Isaac Bankston, a white sheriff and former Confederate soldier, and Missouri Bradford, a young, beautiful woman of color, to hold on to the love that they have for each other despite the significant obstacles that stand in their way. Isaac and Missouri live in a white South bent on preventing genuine affection across the color line. Add to this fact that Isaac is married when his affair with Missouri begins and one has an explosive combination that influences the lives of all of the people connected to this drama. In the end, Isaac learns that the only way that he can continue engaging Missouri is to be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. Engaging Missouri is a story that illustrates the complexity of the human condition as individuals strive to negotiate their desires with society's sometimes uncompromising demands.