First to Leave Before the Sun

Long-time friends Lewis Buzbee and Dave Tilton join together for a unique literary collaboration, two novellas set in the Central Valley of California. Novelist and essayist Lewis Buzbee (YELLOW-LIGHTED BOOKSHOP, STEINBECK'S GHOST) contributes FIRST TO LEAVE, a fictional account of his family's move from Oklahoma to Modesto in the first years of the Dust Bowl. Dave Tilton, solo recording artist and member of SEVENTH TRIANGLE, adds BEFORE THE SUN, a tale of growing up in Manteca in the 1960s; bookended by the Kennedy assassinations, it's about baseball, sugarbeets, and Catholicism. FIRST TO LEAVE BEFORE THE SUN explores the betrayal of emigration and the emigration of betrayal through the lens of The Golden State's notorious promises. One character here describes a certain song as "tenacious, sticks in the mind and follows for days." These stories will do the same.