Biography

While traveling in Peru at age 32, Sam Baker took a train ride that would change his life. On a clear cool morning in Cuzco in the summer of 1986, Sam boarded a passenger train that was blown up minutes later by terrorists. Initially, seven died. The dead included a German boy and his parents who were sitting with Baker in the car. Baker survived, but with lasting damage- deafness, a mangled hand, a mangled leg, and brain damage affecting speech and memory. At 55, words are still occasionally unremembered, requiring extensive search. However, during these searches, he finds other words. From these other words, he finds other stories. And with these stories come characters from other places and times.

The p r e t t y w o r l d trilogy. The trilogy is its own making.

c o t t o n (2009) is the last (and perhaps most difficult) piece of the trilogy. The cost of forgiveness is weighed against the cost of not forgiving. Other characters walk onto the stage: a field hand, a pulp wood logger, a serving girl, a young Mennonite. Once again beauty is a constant.