From Calypso's Island: Selected Writings

From ancient Rome to modern New York, from a funeral to a supermarket, from a raucous society of apes to a somber college campus, FROM CALYPSO’S ISLAND comprises a bountiful assortment of scenes, characters and situations that range from the poignant to the profane, from the exotic to the familiar and from the epic to the intimate. This unique collection features poems and plays, stories, a fond appreciation of the James Bond novels of Ian Fleming, and initial chapters of an epic murder mystery set in ancient Rome early in the fourth century (A.D.) during the reign of Diocletian. A college freshman acridly experiences remorse at the start of his Christmas vacation—a man and a woman fortuitously meet in a crowded tavern on a rainy afternoon and consider the possibility of a romantic liaison—Pygmalion entreats the gods to endow his beloved Galatea with life—three women contentiously attend the funeral of a man to whom each had been previously married—a young Army recruit suspects his estranged wife of marital infidelity. Enhanced by language with the crisp lyricism of music, FROM CALYPSO’S ISLAND is a peerless achievement, an inimitable collection—drama, satire, romance—that explores and celebrates the human condition in all its spectacular tentacular facets of joy, melancholy, poignance, farce and relentless grandeur.