Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Perfect Property
In this novel of suspense and intrigue, Nathan, an English professor from Boston, finds a property in rural Tennessee that dredges up powerful memories of childhood. He signs a contract of sale on the spot, dreaming of a back-to-the-land paradise where he can raise his children with nature and without the stress and pressures of competitive urban life. His semi-estranged wife back in Boston is horrified. And Nathan soon discovers that the property is not free and clear; the former owners are still tangled in a web of lies and greed. Nathan is reeled in, manipulated, and trapped.
Selected and Collected
This is a collection of 27 short pieces, written over the past half dozen years. Many of them are from the booklets I had printed locally to use as Christmas presents. (Writing, for me, is more fun than shopping.) Several of the selections are new and have not appeared anywhere yet. One of them is technically an essay, rather than fiction, and another shades into a kind of loose memoir. Most are short stories of one sort or another, weird, crazy, demented, philosophical, softly romantic, brutally realistic, grim, touchingly upbeat, and are populated by characters who strive, despair, fear, exult, manipulate, develop, reminisce, wonder, and otherwise experience life.
Trade Show Trauma
In this relationship story, set in 1994, the background is a typical business trade show. Alison, product manager for a Knoxville company that produces training materials, and John, the brilliant but abrasive older man who creates the company's products, head off to Tulsa, where they will set up and staff their company's display booth. On the two-day drive, Alison learns a little of John's background and is deeply disturbed. She also calls home and accidentally discovers that her banker husband is cheating on her. This trauma wipes her out, destroying her uptight professional control. To her surprise, John drops his crusty and unpredictable attitude to counsel her, sensitively. At the trade ...
Alien
After 11 years in an institution for the criminally insane, Colin, a celebrated concert pianist, escapes, with the help of a kitchen worker who recognizes that Colin's gifts are being wasted. But he must find a way to avoid recapture in the world outside, first in the rough Tennessee mountain woods where he finds himself. He has no experience with any environment except New York City, where he grew up, recording studios, and the world's concert halls. Also, the anti-psychotic drugs he has been fed since his incarceration have left it difficult to focus or think clearly. He has no money, no identification, no food, and only institutional clothes, but he gradually develops coping abilities as he confronts different environments and environmental ugliness. Eventually, he stumbles on Marie, a woman of his age (mid 60s) with her own difficult, rebellious, background. She takes on Colin's current problems and his rehabilitation as her cause. Together, they experience adventures as they run from recapture. They gradually mesh closer as Colin finally learns of, and engages in, life.
The Swami's Arrow
Col. Tyler French, recently retired from the army and divorced from his wife in California, comes east and buys a concrete house on a Carolina barrier island. He hires a local girl to help him make it livable, and negotiates with the local backhoe operator to build a seawall to protect it against beach erosion. A history professor neighbor befriends Tyler and introduces him to the small, isolated beach community, the center of which is a lowlife bar owned by the backhoe man. As Tyler and the girl work together, he learns she has run away and is hiding from her oppressive preacher husband. A friendship blossoms into much more. The husband tracks her and takes her away while a hurricane bears down on the island, leaving Tyler distraught and in danger.
Cockpit
This novel begins with a strange phone call from Dora, David's grandmother and only living relative. He only met her once, as a boy, and cares nothing about her or family generally. His new wife, Meg, finds this odd, and while David would dismiss the call as nothing he needs to worry about, it stirs Meg to investigate. She flies down from New York, where she and David are urban professionals, to visit Dora, who lives in a remote part of rural Tennessee. She finds Dora elderly, alone, very poor, uncommunicative, possibly hallucinating, and fiercely independent. Meg comes from a normal family, and insists that David take some responsibility for Dora whether she wants it or not. That involves unraveling Dora's backstory, which turns out to be lurid and shocking, and Dora herself is still dangerous.
Dream Group
None
Storm Stan
Stan, a retired trucker who cares for little but fishing and beer, and Rose live in a community on the Jersey shore. Another hurricane, Wilene, even worse than Sandy, rips through, carries away Stan's garage and his boat inside. Stan and his truck barely escape. He drives to his daughter and son-in-law's place, inland. Stan considers the recent disaster and becomes aware for the first time of climate change issues. He decides Rose and he must ultimately move away from the beach to a safer region and reform their lifestyles to reduce their environmental footprint. Rose resists, straining the marriage. Stan visits Carlo, a former fishing buddy, far out on Long Island. A brutal blizzard comes t...
Caw!
This is a novel of ordinary people with a good grip on reality. But the protagonist, Martha, becomes convinced she is being possessed by her creepy neighbor who has taken control of neighborhood crows and is using them to harass her. In trying to rid herself of this problem, she slips into a different kind of possession, just as unsettling and ultimately much more dangerous.
Bullgrab
This is a lighthearted story of two young losers, Jackie and Jason, who find themselves by organizing a modified bullfight outside a small Tennessee town. In the process they deal with a cast of vivid characters and work through a lot of problems, though the event itself is still unpredictable and the potential for disaster extreme.
