Rooted in the Central Oklahoma landscape, the three plays and seven stories in Guns to Keep explore parental betrayal, life without faith, and a loss of personal authenticity. The all-male rural voices often find themselves at odds with unforgiving environments. From an unrelenting cold wind to an unrelenting cold mother, the landscapes of Guns to Keep rarely leave much room for hope, let alone redemption. The conflicts of Guns to Keep range from an escalating argument over a light switch left on in "Cowards" to a sun that refuses to rise in Prelude to Morning. If the characters of these stories and plays share a commonality, it is that they all search for something to believe in, some theory or myth about their lives. Though these characters want little more than to count on the familiar, like the rising of the sun or mothers who love them, they find little to grasp hold of outside themselves.