Kirjahaku

Alex B. Stone began writing fiction in middle age and continued until about a decade before his death in 2015 at age 93. A Polish-born Jew, he focused on life in the American Midwest, portraying characters who were prosperous but off-center within the larger culture and in their own lives. This definitive collection, which includes substantially all his short fiction, portray marriages that have become claustrophobic, business betrayals that are "nothing personal," and family resentments that fester for a lifetime. Running beneath the narratives is a grateful acceptance of the unexpected gifts the world bestows, coupled with humor and humane insight. "His stories connect on a level where most people live, in the day-to-day, where small decisions, good and bad, reveal a person's quality, morality, and, finally, what or who is loved." Professor David McFarland

Vignettes of a community that manages, despite illness, conflict and loss, to hold to precious traditions. A vacation-minded rabbi, an out-of-place cantor, an old man who wants to be buried from the shul . . . Sly and humane stories.

The memoirs, candid to a point, of Benny Roone. We follow his professional career from pulling a Russian nuclear expert out of Europe to gathering evidence in a war crimes case, then share his uneasy retirement. Are murdered poultry and stolen art enough to keep Benny Roone busy? Or will he finally write his memoirs? If he does, will he admit to helping an Israeli spy walk off with U.S. weapons technology?

Harry Apple, a failed multi-media artist from New York, smells opportunity at a Midwest arts foundation. Both sex and money are on the table. Harry's game for both. Phil Wiss's novel has been sold for a slam-bang TV movie without ever having been published. Now his home-town beckons . . . and so do his aging parents.

On idyllic Sanibel Island, Florida, a retired military investigator sets himself up as a consultant in other people's troubles--and oh, does he find troubles A dead Chinese man in a freezer. A mystery writer hoping to murder a burdensome parent. An art curator with designs on an old man's collection, if not on his life. Business as usual as Benny Roone finds more questions than answers.

When Bill Schnell's Uncle George dies, the young executor gets more of a job than he bargained for. Besides George's collection of modern art, Bill finds a trove of German Expressionist work of dubious provenance. Unfortunately, the same could be said for some of George's business partners, whose blunt demands for money lead Bill to question whether his uncle's death was really an accident.

In this unusual new novel, time seems to stand still as the three Kramer daughters gather at their parents' winter retreat on Sanibel Island, Florida. Over several days, conversations loop backward, yearnings and character become indistinguishable, and a bleak truth about family life emerges in this quiet tour de force.