Her Final Act: And Other Stories($9.00Value)

Description

HER FINAL ACT and Other Stories explore the themes of identity, forbidden longing, guilt, empathy and forgiveness in the lives of families from Italy, Germany, Ireland, England and America. In “Her Final Act” a widow startles her friends and employer when they discover her real age and cultural identity at her death and only now learn of a son who searches for his father’s unmarked grave in the same cemetery his mother is now interred. “Mother Agnes” portrays a nun torn between her religious vows and her longing to be a mother. “Before the Fall” delves into the unfiltered guilt of a now diminished elderly patient who had decades earlier divorced the mother of his three children and married her more compatible and passionate sister. “Don’t Think About It” deals with the trauma of a neighborhood when a troubled marriage among them ends in homicide and the young children essentially become orphans. In the story “In Clover”, unexpected visitors from England surprise their American hosts with their frightening health problems and unreasonable demands. The trauma causes an end to their friendship but awakens the American couple from their own stagnant life into a renewed closer relationship. Collectively the characters in these stories remind us that their challenges resonate not only across prior generations but also to the present day.