Butterflies…and Other Stories

These seven short stories--perhaps vignettes would be a better term--are works of fiction. Although some of them were inspired (if that is the appropriate word) by a triggering event that I either experienced or observed, I tried to imbue the characters and their words and actions with a reality that has broad validity and only an incidental relationship to me and the people around me. The stories were not intended to be a vehicle for quasi-autobiographical ruminations. I had no idea when I wrote the first of these stories several years ago how many there would eventually be or what would be the range of settings they would explore. As I think will be obvious, the characters are not the same from story to story. Nor are the stories chronologically sequential. Yet, as I look at this small collection now, it strikes me that the stories span a generation in the lives of the principal male characters, from early parenthood to early grand-parenthood. I didn’t set out to do that; it just happened.