An Old Gramophone Lullaby for the Midnight Orchid of the Bowery - And Other Stories

“The author has a singular fluidity with language I do not often see, the emotional nuances are beautifully subtle, nothing superfluous or overblown, terrific storytelling. I think of wordsmiths like sculptors. They see the form in the block and redact their way to it. We have this command of vocabulary and we do the same, reduce down to the exact words.” – Daniel Christensen For over a decade, this author has written me into lush worlds of masculine, feminine exchange...rich, enchanting, never letting a person down...it is safe to voyage...Piph Gold Neil Calvin Leach, Jr. says selected stories by the author “seem to have spent some time marinating in a slurry of noir repertory featuring scintillas of Lynchian indulgence highlighting an Atchafalaya wash.” In the heart of a bruised 1980s Manhattan, two castaways find an unexpected rhythm in the dark. Eddie is a man stitched together by memories of a glittering past. Decades ago, as a young man during the Jazz Age, he saved his pennies just to sit in the balcony, captivated by the grand glamour of the Ziegfeld Follies. Now, he is a dapper old soul living quietly in the brick high-rises of the Lillian Wald Houses. His world is measured by the soft ticking of an old clock and the simple, comforting recipes of his youth. He is safe, but he is deeply lonely. Gloria is a creature of the midnight streets, draped in black velvet and mourning her lost faith amid the gritty shadows of St. Mark’s Place. She smells of clove smoke and heavy sorrow, a ghost of the city’s concrete edges. When Eddie discovers her weeping on a wrought-iron bench in Central Park, bathed in the fading amber of a crisp autumn dusk, he extends a hand. He welcomes her into his kitchen, and an unlikely sanctuary is born. Over the gentle hum of the stove and the soft clatter of old tin spoons, a modern-day hearth catches fire. Through shared midnight suppers, Eddie’s old-school hospitality provides a safe harbor for the girl who has lost her way. In return, Gloria fills his quiet rooms with the bright, eccentric spice of the younger generation. Her vivid, youthful spirit becomes a mirror where Eddie sees his own youth reflected back, finding in this fierce goth woman the daughter he never knew he needed. "An Old Gramophone Lullaby for the Midnight Orchid of the Bowery" is a tender, witty, and deeply comforting tale about the family we choose, the quiet grace of a hot meal, and the beautiful music made when two lonely eras collide.