WITHOUT A NET

Stories of Our Risky Flights Towards Love, Loss, and Home

by JACK BEACH


Formats

Softcover
£12.80
£9.50
Softcover
£9.50

Book Details

Language : English
Publication Date : 16/08/2004

Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 6x9
Page Count : 412
ISBN : 9781418446420

About the Book

Willing to take a risk? These are risky tales that celebrate the fragile, stubborn human animal: no matter what shape he takes, relationships he forms--the color of his mind. He is on contradictory flights towards love (wherever he may find it), confrontations with loss, and his search for home. He must also be packed for sudden stopovers in North Africa or "Big Easy" to check out the scenes there.

Don't expect consistency. These stories leap like fleas from slapstick-farce in "The Five Dancing Brothers" through horror in "Neighboring" and "The Rats," past a Saroyanesque caper ("No Sabbaticals in Tinseltown") and gay-world hustle ("Close Shave.") to end in the dream-reality of "House of Children." You will meet some unusual folks: Big Tex from Peoria, Branka the Gypsy, the Brainert Boys, the Can Man, and Azzi's Wife. Maybe they will remind you of someone--maybe you.

Two volumes of Jack Beach's poetry have been published by 1 at Books Library: THE THREE MILE BRIDGE: Across Pensacola Bay on a Span of Poems, and THE GRAND TOUR: A Steamer Trunk of Travel Poems. WITHOUT A NET is his first prose work in print. 


About the Author

Former actor, cherry picker, artist, shoe salesman, Assassination buff, and Theatre Professor, Jack hails from Galesburg, Illinois in the heart of the Midwest. After receiving his PhD in Theatre at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Jack spent two decades teaching and directing at the University of Kansas, followed by another decade at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta. Upon retirement, his Cancer/Scorpio signs lured him to water and sun, and he now splits his writing time between Gulf Breeze, Florida, and a slave-quarter pad in New Orleans's French Quarter. An avid traveler, he recently returned from a writing trip to Cambodia and Burma and looks forward to holidays with son Kevin and family, who perform mime, music, and mayhem in Brussels, Belgium.