East of Denver: 1 (Strattford County)

When Shakespeare Williams returns to his familys farm in eastern Colorado to bury his dead cat he finds his widowed and senile father Emmett living in squalor. He has no money the land is fallow and a local banker has cheated his father out of the majority of the farm equipment and his beloved Cessna.With no job and no prospects Shakespeare suddenly finds himself caretaker to both his dad and the farm and drawn into an unlikely clique of old high school classmates: Vaughn Atkins a paraplegic confined to his mothers basement Carissa McPhail an overweight bank teller who pitches for the local softball team and longtime bully D.J. Beckman who now deals drugs throughout small-town Dorsey. Facing the loss of the farm Shakespeare hatches a half-serious plot with his father and his fellow gang of misfits to rob the very bank that has stolen their future. Mixing pathos and humor in equal measure Gregory Hills East of Denver is an unflinching novel of rural America a poignant darkly funny tale about a father and son finding their way together as their home and livelihood inexorably disappears.