Adam Albright had spent his entire life winning, or so he thought. He excelled in school, won recognition as an athlete, and basked in the sunshine of popularity, especially among women. He had succeeded as a lawyer and even more so as a lobbyist. All was going well in the popular estimation. However, a select few recognized that all his success lacked something, a soul perhaps or at least some concern for someone other than himself. Soon his world collapsed. His supposed seductions were r...

Pete and Mary find their humdrum life interrupted dramatically by a spirit from the past. All on the surface appears banal and excruciatingly normal, but this ordinary couple must grapple with questions that otherwise they would have conveniently and blithely ignored. The title suggests one of the key questions that Mary and Pete explore. How can an evening—a measure of time—co-exist with eternity? How does time—a measure of past, present and future co-exist with an everlasting now, an ete...

SYNOPSIS OF A CONVOCATION OF FIVE What is the value of an ordinary guy’s life and who assesses that value? As Tom Albright approaches the end of his days on earth, five individuals meet to evaluate his life. They begin with hearing and commenting on a baby boomer who grew up with illusions of battlefield glory only to lose those illusions during the turbulence of the 60’s. Likewise, Tom immersed himself in idealized visions of athletic glory, academic success, racial harmony, romantic love...

Imagine a world in which work is rare, pot and booze flow freely, and no one seems to have any real concerns—at least no one other than a few elites who run the New Way. Such a world may appear to have few drawbacks. After all, robots have relieved mankind of the tedium of menial jobs, and totally mechanized armies fight the wars in distant countries; even the infantry consists of robotic soldiers. No one is forced to do much of anything, and people are free to pursue their own desires. Ye...

The two tales portray some of the problems facing many American families: bipolar bosses, unemployment, cancer, the seemingly unending hustle for money, and adolescent children coping with the meaning of the puzzling adult world. In ‘67 Ford Mustangs: The Long Drives, the unemployed protagonist undergoes three journeys, including a literal trip to Hell and back. As he scours the country for ‘67 Mustangs to satisfy the fancies of an eccentric collector, he unintentionally comes across an ep...

Conversations with the Dead is contemporary fiction with a slight supernatural twist. Aided by his colleagues, Mary and Angelo, and supported by his wife, Mandy, Peter still finds himself nonplussed as he deals with an uncompromising administrator. Even more disturbing to Peter is a son still fighting off the demons of war. Confronted by a boss intent on firing him and a son still feeling the effects of the war in Iraq, Peter Stonehouse sits confounded in front of the TV late at night, wat...

Two families, one solidly middle-class American and the other undocumented Mexican immigrants, face an uncertain future. No ones job is safe, and no paycheck is ever guaranteed. They both live in a maelstrom of uncertainty. The rule of law has yielded to the flux of opportunism. While the OConnell family struggles with an arrogant boss and adolescent upheavals, the Riveras cope with fear of the cartels and worries over deportation and teenage missteps. Despite initial misgivings and differ...

Picking up where Rhode Island's Founders left off Dr. Patrick T. Conley, Rhode Island's preeminent historian and president of the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame, takes us through the Ocean State's history from 1790 to 1860. Learn how Samuel Slater, the so-called Father of the Factor System, pioneered the making of modern Rhode Island, how Elizabeth Buffum Chace founded the Rhode Island Women's Suffrage Association and what political circumstances led Governor Thomas Wilson Dorr to the ...

Our tale of the Grail opens in the decidedly austere domain of a university archive but then expands to include a journey to far more exotic locations in Switzerland, Scotland, Ireland, Cuba, and finally the United States.Unlike some accounts of the Grail, this one adheres to a vision of the Grail as something quite tangible and real that has the potential to transform lives, to heal the sick, to feed the hungry, to comfort the weary. In this journey of discovery, an enigmatic financier fu...

The Providence River begins its journey from the confluence of the Moshassuck and Woonasquatucket Rivers, in the capital city from which the river takes its name. A short distance downstream, the Seekonk River joins with the Providence as they flow on toward the mouth of Narragansett Bay. The history of the Ocean State was made on the banks of this historic river. It was here that Roger Williams established the first settlement dedicated to religious liberty, Rochambeau's army made its fir...

Rhode Island's contribution to World War II vastly exceeded its small size.Narragansett Bay was an armed camp dotted by army forts and navy facilities. They included the country's most important torpedo production and testing facilities at Newport and the Northeast's largest naval air station at Quonset Point. Three special, top-secret German POW camps were based in Narragansett and Jamestown. Meanwhile, Rhode Island workers from all over the state - including, for...

The two novellas in this collection both describe a world gone mad with a frenzied rush for profit and promotion, a world in which bureaucracy seemingly trumps all other considerations. The first novella, “So, This Is It,” finds its protagonist unable to find work anywhere except in the ever-expanding government bureaucracy. Reluctantly, he finds himself employed in the Office of the Word. Assigned to do the impossible, the protagonist struggles to find meaning in a world without a soul. T...