In “1922”, dedicated Nebraska farmer, Wilf James, murders his wife, Arlette, when she threatens to sell her portion of the family farm to buy a dress shop in Omaha. He involves his 14-year-old son, and, though they get away with murder, Arlette never really seems to leave and life goes downhill from that moment on. 4/5 i59898926 |b1220004285162 |dgcrfi |g- |m |h36 |x1 |t2 |i12 |j38 |k101119 |n08-27-2023 17:41 |o- |aFIC KIN FUL I thought about this carefully, because our lives might depend on what I decided. Sheriff Jones was getting on in years and up in pounds. He wasn’t lazy, but it was hard to get him moving without a good reason. Lester would eventually convince Jones to come out here, but probably not until Lester got one of Cole Farrington’s two hell-for-leather sons to call and remind the sheriff what company was the biggest taxpayer in Hemingford County (not to mention the neighboring counties of Clay, Fillmore, York, and Seward). Still, I thought we had at least two days. The final novella, "A Good Marriage", is a simple idea, perfectly told. Darcy Anderson has been married to her husband Bob, an accountant and coin collector, for almost 30 years. "It was a good marriage, one of the fifty percent or so that kept working over the long haul. She believed that in the same unquestioning way that she believed that gravity would hold her to the earth when she walked down the sidewalk. Until that night in the garage." Bob is off on a business trip. In the garage that night, Darcy finds a box containing evidence that tells her that Bob might be a serial killer. But Bob is coming home.

The first story, “1922,” is told from the point of view of Wilfred Leland James. When the story opens, it is 1930 and Wilfred is in a hotel room, waiting to die. In 1922, Wilfred was a struggling farmer trying to get his 80 acres of land to produce enough to support his wife and son. Wilfred’s wife, Arlette, has inherited 100 acres of good farmland from her father. Instead of letting her husband farm that land, Arlette is intent on selling it to a hog butchery. Arlette’s dream is to sell the land and move off the farm with the money. Before she can sell the land, Wilfred convinces his son, Henry Freeman James, to help him murder Arlette. Although Henry feels conflicted about murdering his mother, he agrees to help his father so he can remain in Nebraska near his girlfriend, Shannon. i58734867 |b1230002172865 |dtlwf |g- |m |h15 |x2 |t0 |i4 |j4 |k101110 |n12-22-2022 19:16 |o- |aFIC KING |uFIC KING871230002172865tlwex27.99p4099 What I wanted to say was, No, it’s not mine . . . but it’s not yours, either. It’s just going to sit there. And that’s all right, because it will be mine in seven years, when I go to court to have her declared legally dead. I can wait. Seven years without smelling pigshit when the wind’s out of the west? Seven years without hearing the screams of dying hogs (so much like the screams of a dying woman) or seeing their intestines float down a creek that’s red with blood? That sounds like an excellent seven years to me. i58741276 |b39948002403538 |dgrhaf |g- |m |h11 |x1 |t0 |i3 |j4 |k101112 |n01-24-2023 00:05 |o- |aFIC KIN Poppa?” Henry was standing with his face toward the barn and his shoulders hunched, like a boy expecting to be beaten. “Is everything all right?”

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He got up and left, still without a word, and I don’t blame him. Even for Arlette, this was a performance of extreme vulgarity. He must have seen her change before his eyes from his mother—a difficult woman but sometimes loving—to a smelly whorehouse madam instructing a green young customer. All bad enough, but he was sweet on the Cotterie girl, and that made it worse. Very young men cannot help but put their first loves on pedestals, and should someone come along and spit on the paragon . . . even if it happens to be one’s mother . . . I looked at him, surprised and not surprised. Then I went inside and poured us each a glass of beer. I gave one to him and said, “None of this tomorrow or the day after, mind.”

And leave you my father’s land, I suppose?” she asked, and tossed her head. How I had come to hate that pert head-toss, so like that of an ill-trained pony, and the little sniff which always accompanied it. “That will never happen, Wilf.” All right,” I said. I tried to brace myself for what I felt sure was coming next: Is there another cow in yonder well? One named Arlette? But I was wrong.

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There are four stories in Full Dark, No Stars: “1922,” “Big Driver,” “Fair Extension,” and “A Good Marriage.” The characters are different in each story, but they are linked by their dark storylines and their morally ambiguous personalities. Retribution is a major theme in every story, although it reveals itself in very different ways. You’d go to jail for assault!” He was wearing a celluloid collar that day, and it had come all askew. It was almost possible to feel sorry for him as he stood there with that collar poking into the underside of his chin and sweat cutting lines through the dust on his chubby face, his lips twitching and his eyes bulging.