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In Memory Plays, author and playwright Stephen Evans gives us four long short stories, each exploring the power of memory in our lives.
In At the Still Point, two former college sweethearts meet again for the first time forty-some years later at a nearly deserted train station. During this encounter, the couple confront the events that broke them apart, the attraction that endures, and the possibilities of life at the Still Point.
In Kingdom by the Sea, an aging antique dealer is approached by a mysterious woman and asked to come to the aid of his deceased friend. She conducts him, like the Ghosts of Christmas, through the events of his past relationship, and the love he never knew.
In Paradox, a writer’s reminiscences of high school and the extraordinary girl he loved reveal the mysterious entanglement of memory and imagination.
In The Smiles, of Cheshire, Mass, a young doctor is called back to his boyhood home to investigate the cause of his irascible grandfather’s hallucinations. Is it a medical issue or a Christmas miracle?.
Print ISBN: 9781953725516
Epub ISBN: 978-1953725622
What the Critics are Saying:
“Evans has proven capable of producing unforgettable work and has gifted us with many deeply affecting stories. Memory Plays feels like a collection of his best, the most distilled and elemental presentation of his subtle and remarkable talents. It’s a fine starting point for readers new to his work, and required reading for anyone already acquainted with his impressive previous releases.”—Blueink Review, Starred Review
“In Stephen Evans’s distinctive short story collection Memory Plays, four sets of principal characters at various crossroads cope with life-altering moments based on their past experiences…Throughout each plotline, rich sensory details—as of a broken clock at a train station, and with references to the standard machinery found in an emergency room—paint thorough pictures of situations while also creating a stark contrast between the settings and the dialogue, which is variously playful, flirtatious, and strained. In a difficult conversation, a character must come to terms with how their own tangled memories have affected their perception of reality, perhaps even of someone else’s side of a given story. And while each tale at least hints at some kind of resolution, room is left for speculation…Memory Plays is an introspective short story collection about the complexities of understanding the combined power of the past, the present, and the future.—Foreword Clarion Reviews
“Playwright Evans (author of The Mind of a Writer and Other Fables) transports readers to the crossroads between past and future in this penetrating compendium, unfolding through four different stories that range in place from a coffee shop in Chelsea to an unlikely train station to small-town America.”—Booklife
“A precious collection of, as the description says, “ four long short stories” all about the power of love, transformation, loss and personal choices. Somehow strikingly similar and entirely different at once, each story showcases a couple’s journey to their version of happily ever after. Utterly breathtaking and original.”—NetGalley Reviewer
Excerpt from At the Still Point:
The voice (both grating and filled with joy like a dark chocolate cupcake with orange cream inside) that summons her attention is both unexpected and mysteriously appropriate to the face that gazes at her over a newspaper, pencil in hand, which reminds her a little bit of the Princeton version of Albert Einstein (sweatshirt and sneakers included). The accent is eastern European (Gwen, a Grace Kelly look-alike, though more the actress than the princess despite her 60-some years, had travelled extensively, as perhaps most Grace Kelly look-alikes have the opportunity to do) by way of the Bronx, with some other mysterious almost Celtic possibly Welsh influence wending its way through the vowels. Gwen tries to imagine the life journey that could concoct such a voice and is actually startled when the voice burbles again.
Excerpt from Paradox:
Baylor was not a fragile girl, though I could beat her two out of three in arm wrestling. So I was not completely surprised when she tackled me on the school lawn and sat looking down at me from a vantage point somewhere near my solar plexus.
Any normal person would have asked her why she had done it, but Baylor and I had passed that point long ago. I knew Baylor wasn’t normal and I was beginning to have doubts about myself, a symptom of extreme Bayloritis due to overexposure.
Not that I minded.
Sanity is a handicap in this world, ranking second only to intellect.
Most of us have one or the other.
Baylor had the other.
There weren’t many smarter than Baylor. There weren’t many prettier either. She was without a doubt the single most extraordinary human in my graduating class.
The only mediocre thing about Baylor was me.
No wonder I loved her.
