A Thing So Small

About the Book

Parris Montgomery Bishop wants a different father, he wants a different life.  Linda Novaks would give anything to go to college early, to get away from her parents and the suburbs, out from under the thumb of university protocol.  In this story, the first of three examining the Renfro family, we are plunged into the world of Parris and Linda, two teens on a collision course that will become entangled with the fates, both awarded something they did not want, affording compromises they could not forsee.

Grant Novaks wants a life like the romance movies from the 1950s.  Diane Novaks never even wanted to be married or to have a child in the first place.  And yet they stay married, through nearly fifteen years, persevering in the hopes that at least out of the ashes of their marriage there may be something wonderful, a shining star salvageable that makes all of the sacrifice worthwhile.

Why exactly does Parris end up in jail?  Why did Diane and Grant marry in the first place?  What does Linda want to do with her life?  Who is the figure in black that squats outside her window, peering in?  Why does Diane keep seeing her angel?  A story about marriage, friendship, the interference of fate, Fermat’s Final Theorem, and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, wound around a small university town in Indiana.

About the Author

Silence X. Whittaker teaches emotionally disturbed children in Turlock, California. He lives in Atwater, California with his wife, Dawn, and his three children, three cats, and two dogs. Winner of several awards for short fiction, including one at the Indiana University Writers’ Conference in 1992, this is his first published book.