Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Skewed, that word best describes the characters, situations, and timeframes in this collection, A Masque for the Fields of Time. Take the opening story, where a dance seems to be happening during the narrator's youth, since his baby-sitter is busily flirting on the dance floor with another teenager. But then time skews and the dance is happening -- when? And those puppets in the rafters, seemingly pulling strings on all the dancers -- just what are they doing? Well, maybe the collection's last story will clear things up . . . or does it only skew matters further, for this story's protagonist is swimming, yes swimming, on a mission to obtain headstones -- now irritatingly called grave markers, the narrator complains. Okay then, in another story we at least have the comfort of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus confronting Simone de Beauvoir -- but then why do tiny voices haunt the professed atheistic trio with religious barbs? With humor both grim and playful, all the stories in this c
Synopsis
Many of these stories-most especially "The Man Who Haunted Himself" and the title story-were inspired by dream visions. I try to take such visions and search for the human truth concealed within, working within a framework of verisimilitude. While I partially envy the creating of "realistic" fiction, I'm typically happy to write in the romantic mode. Um, gee, Vonnegut, Emily Bronte, and Laurence Sterne strike me as worthy of emulation. Nonetheless, several other stories in this collection ("Soft Queen," "Ontological," and "All Lovely") were originally intended for a novel of linked stories that basically aimed toward an admixture of psychological/love/detective realism. For the sake of that novel's plot progression the three were trimmed, to be included herewith. And then the stories "Breakdown Club" and "The Secret Life of Atheists" from whence? The latter came from my youthful infatuation with Sartre and Camus. Why not, I figured, toss in some wine and Simone DuBeauvoir? And what of "Breakdown Club"? The junction of a trip to the zoo and my year and a half apprenticeship as a concrete finisher brought that one about. No matter the inspiration, I do think that all these stories offer a vision of life that comes across a bit skewed. And what life doesn't offer that jaunty description, in the end?