Coming February 5 2020

Available February 5, 2020 on Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com and at bookstores across the United States.

SOON TO BE RELEASED: "A View From the Borderline"

Exciting news! I am releasing an anthology of short stories, A View From the Borderline on Ingram Sparks Publishing. Release date is
February 5, 2020

Here is the blurb:


-->

In A View from the Borderline: A Collection of Short Stories (Ingram Sparks), acclaimed author Charles Souby affirms his “powerful, empathetic study of place and character” (Kirkus Reviews), gift for dark humor, and insight into troubled and twisted human minds. Set in Hollywood, Chicago, and nameless Midwestern small towns between the 1970s and the present, the 20 stories introduce an eclectic cast of characters who range from quirky to deranged; misguided, wild, lost, and warped to varying degrees. The “borderline” men and women include:

·      Davenport, a recently retired investment advisor, who hatches a plot to poison pigeons in a park across the street to frame his apartment neighbor Mrs. Goldberg.

·      Leonard, a plodding AAA clerk off on a psych leave and a regular at the local racetrack bar, whose knack for picking winning horses tragically collides with his weakness for boozy redheads in “Silver Slum Dog.”

·      Mrs. Rosewood, whose audacious plan to expose her dry cleaner as a thief—with the help of a can of lighter fluid—gets the attention of a hostage negotiator in “The Plaid Golf Pants.”

·      Stephen, a remedial student at a second-rate prep school, who, in the summer of 1973, becomes infatuated with a sweet but troubled 14-year-old runaway scheduled to be committed to an asylum for marijuana use and sexual promiscuity in “Christa’s Case - A View From the Borderline.”

Charles Souby draws his fictional characters and situations from a wide range of personal experiences.

In Ancient Ayodhya

Reflections during Rama’s exile

In ancient Ayodhya

I pine for you daily.

Your departure has turned
a level earth on her side.

To you, oh Governor Lord
exile was no big deal.

You said: “the forest or the City,
I walk them each the same”

But I walk the cold, sunless
streets of this ancient archetype;
my memories of joy and laughter
drown now by street cats
screeching;
not in love-making (which has
become an unnatural act)
but in forlorn seclusion.

They sing in dissonant choir
with the baying dogs
and howling wolves

The moon herself turned black
and foreboding
with your tragic leaving.

The streets are piled high with
ears and eyes and noses
cast off by those who
have no faith in your return.

I can only barely recall
the sanity of your presence,
how exile made no difference to you:

“The forest or the city

I walk them all the same”

I gave up suicide long ago
after a hundred futile tries
though Lord, I never doubted
your return I only doubted
my strength and patience.

And now my friend and master,
you left us one single pair of
sandals; they sit on the throne
awaiting your discerning
judgment and generalship

And though fourteen years
is coming quickly,
yet it seems it will never arrive
or you were never here at all
and this was all a broken dream
to cheer a mad world.