The prime focus of the article is to admonish writers that in a perverse way the more successful they are at writing realistic scenarios the more their chances are of becoming identified with their work on a personal basis. The article (as does my story “Pride’s Prison”) also focuses on the almost unbelievable changes that have occurred within society and societal mores since I was a kid in the early to mid-sixties. It is virtually impossible for younger people today to comprehend this transition, no matter how many reruns they might watch of fifties and sixties television shows. The article comments on both the necessity of change as well as its inherent dangers.
Excerpts...
"The changes within societal mores since 1968—that watershed year when the incipient winds of radical change collided with reaction to tragically claim the lives of Dr. King and Sen. Kennedy in quick succession—have perhaps been more profound than any in all history, in so brief a span, short of a military invasion or total economic collapse. Yet, this fantastic transformation is rarely even commented upon. (The writers of the movie Blast from the Past took a hilarious stab at it.) This is partially the point of how the beginning of my story is framed."
"Jonathan Swift was an Anglican priest who wrote as a sideline, with his best known work, of course, having been Gulliver’s Travels. Dr. Swift had been perhaps the greatest satirist in literary history. He was, in fact, a great humanitarian who, nevertheless, actually found himself shunned by many who—incredibly!—thought he had been serious with his satirical masterpiece “A Modest Proposal” intended as a scathing indictment upon the horrendous social and economic conditions in the Ireland of his day (long before the cataclysmic potato blight that resulted in myself, along with millions of others, having been born here in America)."
The bulk of the collection is eight short stories that are set in yesteryear. The compilation is filled out with four entertaining fantasy pieces and three poems.
'Coruscated Confabulations' is a collection of stories and experiences, most of which took place in prior decades. They are taken from or based upon real events, with a certain admixture of fictional embellishments.
A teenage boy struggling with the coming-of-age issues of sexuality, religion, and peer approval is overwhelmed, but soldiers on. After several years, he comes to understand the family forces that have left him so deeply troubled, and the process of
