In the Shadow of the Plague

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>IN THE SHADOW OF THE PLAGUE is an environmental and family saga set in the Eugene area of Western Oregon. Delbert Killian is a hardy opinionated builder and landlord of seventy years who has a bisexual girlfriend half his age is in the middle of divorcing his latest wife and still chops his own firewood. Delbert has been designated executor of a distant relative's trust which consists of ten square miles of timber along the edge of the Willamette National Forest. He is instructed to get the land accepted into the National Forest if possible; if not to log it and distribute the proceeds among some twenty beneficiaries who include most of Delbert's extended family. The wife he is divorcing Sandra picks up the narrative in chapter 4 and thereafter Delbert narrates alternate chapters with Jason one of his sons; with Laralee Jason's girlfriend; and with Herman Sandra's gangster boyfriend. While the beneficiaries pressure Delbert to log the land and distribute the money he develops a plan to help the residents of Blue Blood Creek an unincorporated village located on trust land to incorporate and buy their homes which would in turn pay off debt that blocks the inclusion of the trust lands into the National Forest. A physical assault on Delbert leads into a subplot involving Herman and his enforcer Tiny who is inadvertently murdered. Delbert loses his girlfriend Lucy to his niece Florence a relationship he ultimately blesses by presiding over their marriage.</span></p>