Trager Stories

About the Book

The Trager tales, in some respects, are existential detective stories. Trager is the detective, but it’s not always clear what he’s trying to solve.

There are seven stories in “Trager Stories” and the first one, “Sleeping Giant,” is an origin tale of sorts. It tells how, on a camping trip with his most esteemed college professor and mentor, Trager rejects the pursuit of the intellectual to follow a creature of fire into the woods. He never turns back from his path as Trager.

There are magical elements in some of the stories, but they are by no means fantasy. Several scenes, in fact, are quite graphic. The self-imposed test for Trager is to accept whatever comes, process it, and incorporate it into his vision.

Nearly all of the “Trager Stories” take place in the wilds, and almost anyone is liable to show up. In “Train a-Comin’”, Train Jackson, an NBA power forward, is explaining to Trager how he guards Michael Jordan when a grizzly shows up at their campfire in the Wind River Range. “In A Silent Way” begins with Trager finding Miles Davis’ trumpet in the middle of Monument Valley. A Hindu restaurateur encounters Trager in the Florida swamps and whisks him off to a disco in “The Dance of Shiva,” only to learn that Trager is Shiva.

Although I am not a trained naturalist, I try to paint in the flora, fauna and geology of the various settings as accurately as possible. The book covers a wide range of  landscapes, and I think would be good camping reading for anyone who likes the outdoors, particularly mountaineering. Beyond that, I would hope that “Trager Stories” will appeal to anyone willing to get their boots muddy in a literary sort of way.

About the Author

Fred Contrada has written six novels and a non-fiction book of road stories, in addition to “Trager Stories.” For the last thirteen years, he has worked as a reporter for the Springfield Union-News in Massachusetts, covering city politics, courts, the environment and breaking news and writing feature stories. Prior to that, he lived in New Orleans, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Oregon and Atlanta, doing a variety of jobs, from pizza chef to cab driver to fruit picker. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts with his wife Joan and his children, Amanda and Rio.