Ribbon in the Sky

Garlock's ( Homeplace ) trite, cliche-ridden tale is set in the years before and after World War I. When 15-year-old Letty Pringle becomes pregnant, her father, a hypocritical evangelical minister, beats her and orders her to ``take your hot little twat and leave my house.'' Her lover,stet comma Mike Dolan, has left home to find work so that he can marry Letty, not knowing she is pregnant. Mike returns to hear that Letty is dead--her father having publicly announced her demise--and enlists to fight in the warp. 58 . In fact, Letty has taken refuge on her grandparents' Nebraska farm, convinced that Mike has abandoned her. When he appears at the farm after five years determined to ``devote the rest of his life making it up to her,'' Letty doesn't want to hear about it. However, Letty's wise, old Grandpa Jacob, along with her and Mike's son, Patrick,stet commas and Helen, a child fostered out to Letty's care, give the determined lover a place in their hearts. But just as things are about to work out for Mike and Letty, some cartoonlike villains--Helen's drunken, child-molesting father, a sheriff's deputy turned bootlegger and Letty's Bible-thumping family--all threaten their newfound happiness. (Dec.)