Condor dreams & other fictions

Gerald W. Haslam

In this collection of twenty-five short stories, Gerald Haslam explores the rural areas and small towns of his native region - California's Great Central Valley. The stories reveal a principally masculine cast that is as culturally diverse, and sometimes as zany, as Westerners actually are - a Chinese laborer, a Portuguese farmer, a Vietnamese schoolboy, a black cowboy, an Okie rowdy, an Armenian poet, plus some who blend those and other ingredients. The opening story, "Condor Dreams" is a reflective and delicately instructive tale of a father and son and their connection with the California condor that serves as a metaphor for the region's traditional way of life. "Scars" is a poignant examination of the life of a young man victimized by his alcoholic mother. In "Rising Action" fifteen-year-old Ernest alternately yearns for his first sexual encounter and seeks out a confessor to...

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