Cardinal Rules & Other Tales

The digital revolution has numerous intended and accidental consequences. One consequence is the diminution of short fiction, primarily due to the decline of print magazines. Sure, Amazon’s Kindle Vella has attached the paddles to the fading life signs of short fiction, but short stories published in book form continue to decline in number.

So why would anyone publish a collection of short stories? Is the author satisfied if the only copies sold would be by family and friends, and many of them will claim they read the short stories and hope the author doesn’t ask for details?

The short answer is that these 11 stories offer a unique view of human nature and social interaction at work. Short stories are life in a snapshot, which is how we deal with life every day. In life, people who are incidental to our life can play as critical a role as people who are indispensable in our life.

In Cardinal Rules, you’ll meet a woman who aspires to have a romantic life that approximates that of the northern cardinals that inhabit her backyard trees.

In The Man Who Hated Google, a man who works hard his entire life struggles with retirement, loneliness, and establishing a stronger relationship with his daughter.

In What The Tin Man Learned, you’ll cross a threshold into a speculative journey about the afterlife and the simple wisdom that defines our lives.

In Driving Jim Morrison, a middle manager tries to ensure a long daily commute with an audiobook that magically brings the book's subject alive while he listens.

In The Hit List, a man loses his wife to cancer and discovers that she designed a system that evaluated him and others based on a rigid system of pluses and minuses.

In Night, Night, Baby, a couple goes on a reality TV show and is portrayed as villains, provoking grievance, hate, intolerance, and racism. Is the show the reality of their lives?

In The Ill-Fated Man, a man consumed by loneliness and consuming too much alcohol finds redemption through his 10-year-old nephew and his turtles.

In Comebacks, a man who suffered mistreatment from his father as a child learns that that same man can be a devoted grandfather.

In Book Club Confessions, four women and a man get together monthly to confess secrets and get help from each other.

In Wingspan, an injured Canadian goose re-energizes a suburban man battling aging and lack of direction.

In Unforgettable, a roadie who destroyed his personal and professional life finds atonement by helping a dementia patient who hangs by a thread through his music.

Let me end with a quote from a great contemporary short story author.

“I want my stories to be something about life…and that doesn’t mean that it has to be a happy ending or anything, but just that everything the story tells moves the reader in such a way that you feel you are a different person when you finish.” – Alice Munro -- Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013.