At one of my book signings, an old friend explained tearfully how much he had enjoyed reading Prairie Sunset. But there was a catch.
“The only problem with the book is there is no prairie anywhere in it.”
Because of his emotional state, I did not argue but what he said is not factually true.
The great sprawling metropolis of Oklahoma City occupies an ancient prairie. Just because buildings, roads and the residue of commerce now cloak it does not lessen that fact.
None of this really matters because the title refers to a state of mind rather than a specific location.
John Warren, the unlikely eighty-year-old protagonist of the story has literally run away from home in search of the “magic fountain.” What he finds is an even more unlikely love affair with an attractive sixty-something woman of American Indian heritage.
In a passage near the book’s end, John explains to Attie Johnson, the newly found love of his life, the meaning of the title. They are on a hillside, near Eureka Springs, Arkansas, watching the western horizon as the sun sets.
“Once, on a spring night in western Oklahoma I saw a sunset almost as beautiful as this one. Particles of dust from some volcanic eruption in the Pacific filled the sky. Invisible during the day, the dispersed particles became fiery streaks of crimson incandescence at dusk.”
“A beautiful sunset is something to remember.”
“Attie, do you remember the horse races?”
“Course I do.”
“Remember when I told you which horse I was betting on? You said he was the biggest nag on the track and had never won a race.”
“And you were too stubborn to listen.”
“I bet on the name, Prairie Sunset, because until I met you that sunset I saw in western Oklahoma was the loveliest vision I’d ever seen.”
* * *
Tonight, outside my kitchen window the wind chimes are singing, blown into full throaty sound by forty-mile-an-hour winds. When I stepped into the front yard and glanced skyward, I caught a glimpse of the vision John must have witnessed in western Oklahoma. Full glowing crimson, bordered by diffused azure painted the western skyline. Prairie dust, blown high by prevailing winds had created the resplendent scene.
Prairie dust, pixie dust, whatever! At that moment, I knew just how John Warren must have felt.
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