Boer Meat Goats from Ashland Hills Ranch

Joseph D. Iverson ~ Author

Joseph Iverson was born into poverty in the desolate Southwestern desert during the Great Depression.

While in high school, he began writing short stories which describe the adventures of his brothers and cousins in the bleak surroundings of his childhood. He served as a recruit in the U. S. Army and supported himself through college with the GI Bill and working summers in the fish canneries of Alaska.

Having earned an M. A. in German and English literature in 1964, he spent the next three decades teaching language and creative writing. Today he lives as a free-lance author and goat rancher in Ashland, Oregon.

He has written three novels and thirty-three short stories, having published one novel and several short stories in the bindings described here.

Harvey's AWOL

Harvey's AWOL Inadvertently left behind when his company departs for Viet Nam, pvt. Harvey James Lobb (alias Jerald Dean Nelson) is Absent Without Leave and pursued by both the FBI and a zealous militia group whose leader is convinced that Harvey is responsible for the crash of the plane that killed his comrades. Their deaths must be avenged.

Harvey's instinct for survival pilots him to Alaska where he struggles to cope with life in a village inhabited by native Indians, Aleuts, half-breeds, and miscreant outcasts from the lower states. In this alien culture, he discovers himself caught in a complex social web, a structure in which he finds devoted friendship, love, and danger.

Harvey's AWOL, ingeniously plotted, is a story of young innocence, awkward love, mature romantic relationships, adventure and survival. Relentlessly pursued, Harvey manifests his genuine patriotism through his need to turn himself in, even though he will face court-martial. Throughout the story, this need and his perilous struggle to stay alive wear on him. His struggle becomes even more intense after he experiences deep, tender love. His adventures span from Alaska's snow-covered tundra to the Canyon Lands near Moab, Utah.

"Harvey's AWOL does more than entertain. The story is fast-paced and intricately plotted, transporting us into a society we've not known, drawing us into a grid of interlocking tales teeming with characters from another world. Harvey's AWOL is sweating with action and surprise. The vivid writing throughout the book is gripping, compelling the reader to keep turning the pages."
Fred Manzo, Ph.D., Professor of English Literature, Chapman University

Long Before Sundown

Long Before Sundown In the eight short stories of this binding, written over the course of many years, Joseph Iverson illustrates a variety of individual conflicts from the frivolous to the deadly serious.

The plot in Hot Peppers deals with levity, the inner conflict of an individual destined for pain due to his own curiosity.

Whereas the piety in The Family Reunion strikes a comical note with some, the overt conflict of mockery by the rogue members of the family strikes at the very core of the implicit personal conflict of the purpose of existence.

Written in simple, precise, vivid prose, these eight stirring stories describe human conflicts from the subtle to the dramatic, conflicts that confirm long held individual convictions leading to decisive action.

Such is the plot of the title story Long Before Sundown with the setting in Mexico during the Pancho Villa uprising. The decisive, calculating Carlos contrasts sharply with Leif's youth and naiveté. Why has Carlos slipped into a world from an earlier time?

In all eight stories the author presents contrasts of rich ambiguity, contrasts that make human existence both happy and sad and encourage the reader to enjoy and interpret various levels of the complexity of human conflict.