Publisher's Synopsis
The stories in "The Soul as Strange Attractor" are described by one reader as "literary fiction edged with magic realism elements," in which, "early stories play out in the background and wings of later," ones. As the characters speak, their intent is the truth; they take themselves seriously. We need not, but if we share their sincerity, something cardinal may arise, like gravity waves from the edgeless outermost. The characters live in Mudgap, New Mexico, a village in the Sierra Fangoso Mountains, west of Las Cruces, founded on gold fever and sustained by tourists and government. Their interests are typical: blood on the White Sands, the Vietnam War, Dr. Reich's Orgone Accumulator, Buddy Bolden's lost recordings, space aliens, the true meaning of Christmas, the Crown of Aleppo, childhood pranks, the mystery of reality, the tedium of infidelity, tall tales, taller tales, ghosts, and coming of age. Time is a silent character, mugging his way through the scenes, not in the background, but largely unnoticed. Readers who doubt the existence of places not found on a map are reminded: neither maps nor dictionaries were passed out with the Ten Commandments. "The Soul as Strange Attractor" doesn't pretend otherwise.
