Here & Now, Then & There: A Collection of Short Stories(English)

A fiction writer's mind is free to wander anywhere. He can invent characters who live Here or There and ones who live Now or Then, at his discretion. This collection exposes the reader to the Here, the Now, the Then and There. Through the eyes of dreamers, realists, celebrities, farmers, students, teachers, prisoners, voodoo queens, the dead, AIDS victims, children and adults, the writer provides the reader with experiences of loss, gain, hopes and dreams. One is given insights into various fascinating characters and their environments from the streets of San Francisco, New Orleans, Nashville, Hollywood, New York and Berlin, to historic sites and dirt roads of rural communities. The stories range from a woman's determination to end a dieting argument, two men refusing to become irrelevant in old age, the longings of an incarcerated poet to a grandfather's vigil of a special memorial. None of these stories is drawn completely from any particular source. Vivid remembrances of people, places, times, some sayings and other quirky flashes from years ago to the present make up the material for the stories. The reader will identify with many of these people as well as the places, but they are borne of the author's imagination and there they thrive.

Review :
"Jerry Henderson has composed a series of compelling word portraits. As he takes his readers from piece to piece, they might experience the feeling of moving through an art gallery. What they encounter might stay with them long after they have closed the cover of his book." Paul Clements, Author of "A Past Remembered" and "Chronicles of the Cumberland" "Within this fine collection of twenty-six stories, Jerry Henderson writes about his characters with absolute honesty, good humor, and with considerable compassion for those who have darkness in their lives. His dialogue and detailed descriptions of characters and places are so well done you are drawn on and on into the lives of families and friends who love and hate one another, who are kind and cruel to one another, and who are all believable. While a few stories range far from the South you will quickly know you are in the hands of a southerner for whom the past is ever present in this wonderful feast of Here & Now, Then & There." George Spain, Author of "The Last Giant," "Come Sit With Me," "Lost Cove," and "Our People: Stories of the South"