October

Faced with increasing loneliness and mortality Patty Pemberton is torn between a past she honors a present she assumes is stable and a future she doesnt know how to plan for. After a new friend disappears from her life and as autumn deepens and the years end closes in she journeys into her community and the places and histories binding them all-and haunting her-until she arrives at what is most important while hoping her friend returns. Rich with characters and locations as well as personal and public chronicles October is a moving and compassionate meditation on life love memory and death.Every day I move between Saul and Ray. And although Ray has been gone for a while and I live alone I am never alone because he and our images when we were together and Saul and his image have me. One photo greets me like a face in a crowd and the other image more familiar over time also comes and goes. Both photos have been with me at peaks in valleys and on the plains in between. I pass by them daily and nightly month to month but I should only have one.William Auten is the author of the novels In Another Sun and Peppers Ghost and the short-story collection A Fine Day Will Burn Through. His work has appeared widely online and in print. williamauten.com