Novels summary

Sid Gardner has written eight novels since 2004, and is currently working on his ninth. The novels touch on some of the issues in CFF’s portfolio, but are not intended to reflect any views other than those of the author.

  1. Like A Single River
  2. A Just and Determined Man
  3. The Faults of the Owens Valley
  4. The Middle of Nowhere
  5. Broken Bridges
  6. Recalling Amnesia
  7. Crossings (with Scott Robinson)
  8. Five Paths

Like a Single River imagines that one million people begin a journey from Mexico to the California border, intending to all cross at once. A journalist moves back and forth between the Governor of California and the charismatic Mexican woman who is leading The March, describing the coming confrontation at the Border.

A Just and Determined Man is a fictionalized biography of Ira Leonard, a judge in late 19th century New Mexico who served as Billy the Kid’s lawyer. It was written by his great-grandson, Sid Gardner.

The Faults of the Owens Valley follows a serial killer who uses historic locations in the Owens Valley as a way to dramatize his grievances against the residents of the Valley. A deputy sheriff and her partners track the killer down in the foothills of the Eastern Sierra, while dealing with her own problems with authority.

The Middle of Nowhere is about a young girl who has been sent to a residential treatment program for girls in a Western state. She encounters the best and worst features of residential treatment, as she  finds her way through tragic and hilarious adventures with the other girls in the program.

Broken Bridges is about a baby, a drug dealer, and all the forces that swept them both toward tragedy. The novel tells a story about prenatal drug exposure and the agency fragmentation that failed to prevent it.

Recalling Amnesia follows a young draftee as he arrives in Vietnam in 1967. Forty years later, he is a senior diplomat working in Iraq who reflects on the similarities and the differences between the two wars.

Crossings (written with Scott Robinson) is a political fable, published in early 2016, which imagines the election of a US president in 2016 who takes office and begins the process of deporting 11 million undocumented residents of the US. The novel follows events along the US and Mexican borders as leaders and grass-roots activists  in both countries respond to this policy.

Five Paths is a companion novel to a nonfiction work—The Future of the Fifth Child: A Review of Global Child Protection Policy. The novel tracks five college graduates who take up careers in different arenas within the international child protection field—politics, cyberfinance, religious agencies, music therapy, and security forces protecting women and children. The five meet every five years to compare notes and share strategies.

All these novels are available from Amazon or IUniverse Publishers.