Hungry

1933 - 1942

Protagonist: Walter Earl Fugate (4 ~13 years old)

Setting: Estill County, Kentucky

Summary: Walter Earl is born hungry—hungry for care, for love. Raised amid neglect, gunfire, canned peaches, and sin, he learns early that violence buys attention. By twelve, he’s lost an eye, seen his second shooting and—on his 12th birthday—first murder. Hunger becomes the family’s first inheritance.

Porch Gossip

≈ 1949 – 1959

Narrative Chorus: Carl T. Zebow, Ruby, Larinda (Rindy)

Setting: Estill County, Kentucky

Summary: The legend of Walter Earl is told through the porch-sitters, bar-flies, and busybodies who watch him spiral. A chorus of newspaper headlines, rumors, police blotters, and tavern talk forms the community’s unofficial biography of Walter Earl—and, on one occasion, Della. 

Actin’ Ugly

1958

Protagonist: Puddin (toddler)

Setting: Sand Hill, Kentucky

Summary: Inside Little Mammaw’s fading house, Puddin learns that beauty and punishment come from the same hand. Castor oil, dust fairies, and a red mark on her chin become her first education in shame, loneliness, and tenderness.

Pony Farm

August 11, 1961 - Day

Setting: Louisville, Kentucky

Protagonists: Puddin (4 years old)

Summary: A family picnic gone wrong. Sexual tension, and a 22-rifle delivered via a school bus.

Screen Door

August 11, 1961 - Afternoon through night

Setting: Louisville, Kentucky

Protagonists: Puddin (4 years old)

Summary: Later in the evening: a robbery, a killing, and a police raid all hit the screen door of the Highbaugh rental house. Innocence is slit open with a pocketknife and fear delivered by a machine gun in her mother’s face.

Learnin’ to Be a Mule

1965

Setting: Louisville, Kentucky

Protagonist: Puddin (9 years old)

Summary: Hard work, silence, and endurance are mistaken for virtue. Puddin learns to carry more than her share—without complaint—and begins the long apprenticeship in survival.

Wringer

1968 - 69

Protagonist: Puddin (12)

Setting: Louisville, Kentucky

Summary: Blood in the toilet, ironing, periods, laundry, and more blood - that’s not Puddin’s.

Secrets

1971

Setting: Louisville, Kentucky

Protagonist: Puddin (15)

Summary: While cleaning the desk she inherits, Puddin discovers the hidden newspapers detailing her father’s crimes. She experiences firsthand her father’s explosive sense of justice and takes her first job as “bag man” for the Old Man—ushering her into his shadow world.

Ken-Bowl

1972 - October

Setting: Louisville, Kentucky

Protagonist: Puddin (Just weeks before 16th birthday)

Summary: Walking to the drugstore, an attempted kidnapping…rape… and visit to an insurance office.

He Did Us a Favor

1974 - August

Protagonist: Puddin (17)

Setting: Louisville, Kentucky

Summary: Walter Earl shoots a man at a liquor store. Puddin is called in … detectives tell her that Walt did us a favor…. We’ve been trying to kill that son of a bitch for years. He’s a dealer… heroin.

Carousel

1977 

Protagonist: Puddin (21 years old) 

Setting: Louisville, Kentucky

Summary: Walter Earl gives Jason (two years old) a plaything—a loaded pistol. Della watches. The moment that severs their bond for good.

Checkin’ Out

1982

Protagonist: Della

Setting: Louisville, Kentucky

Summary: Walter Earl is actively dying, and Della must get him out of the house before he goes. Her greatest fear is someone coming into the house and seeing it and their situation for what it is.

Stained

1982

Protagonist: Puddin (26)

Setting: Louisville, Kentucky

Summary: Puddin is persuaded to visit her dying father one last time. The hospital room, full of alcohol fumes and unfinished sentences, becomes both confessional and curse.

The House of Fugate

2006 - March

Protagonist: Puddin (adult)

Setting: Louisville, Kentucky
Summary: Della begins to fall—literally and mentally—as Lewy Body dementia creeps in. The house turns against her; stairs, clutter, and memories become traps.

Best Deal Dumpsters

2006 - May

Setting: Louisville, Kentucky

Protagonist: Puddin (50 years old)

Summary: A phone call to rent a dumpster becomes a confession of thirty-three years of family rot. Between humor and horror, she faces the debris of Della’s secret life and her own complicity.

Goin’, Goin’, Gone

January 1982 and March 2006

Setting: Louisville, Kentucky

Triptych of Checkin’ Out, Stained, and Best Deal Dumpsters.

Sisyphus and the Cardboard Box - Rashomon style

2006 - May

Protagonist: Puddin (50 years old)

Setting: Louisville, Kentucky

Summary: Nancy and Della conspire to sabotage the clean-out. Like some cruel, twisted fairy tale, what goes out comes back overnight.  Puddin almost breaks. Louisville’s Junk Day saves her in the end.

In Color

2007 – 2009

Protagonist: Puddin

Setting: Louisville, Kentucky

Summary: Della returns to the Pony Farm that has recently been turned into a patio home development. As she fades into dementia, Puddin finds a hidden color photograph and a .38 revolver—the final evidence of what love and survival cost.

Abra Rue - The Dream

April 29, 2025