Once Upon a Decade

A waitress in New Jersey puts a curse on a sailor; his behavior becomes increasingly irrational. A high official in a banana republic uses a military man to help overthrow the President, but his plan takes an unexpected turn. Two shipmates — one white, the other black — learn first-hand about segregation in 1950s Savannah. A man with a tortured psyche keeps a pink teddy bear on his food tray as he watches the Olympics on television. A timid adolescent boy suffers the pangs of unrequited love. A sailor who wants no more complications in his life falls in love with a young prostitute in Cuba on the eve of the Castro Revolution. A young high school teacher attempts to withstand a female students powers of seduction. An academic meets Jorge Luis Borges and uncovers the mystery of an American writer with three different names. These are just some of the premises of the seventeen narratives contained in this collection of short stories.

All but two of the narratives in this collection paint a picture of the 195Os. Many of the elements of this culture will repel: racism, sexism and homophobia, for example. Yet this was an era in which neither the threat of terrorism nor the scourge of AIDS existed for the average American.

These stories deal with love and death, triumphs and defeats, adolescent angst and the tension between ethnicity and assimilation. Some present adventure on the high seas as well as a glimpse of Havana night life on the eve of the Castro Revolution.