Plank Fence

About the Book

Thomas Gern wakes one autumn morning, having put the death of his family twenty years behind him, and stares out from behind his plank fence. Like most people who experience tragedy, he has had to deal with the separation and the lonliness the best way he can, so he isolates himself. As he watches the world from behind his plank-fenced refuge, he sees that all things are connected. He realizes to be isolated is to be dead. Tom finds this out because of an abused woman in his town who brings him the truth about the past.

About the Author

Born in St. Johns, Michigan, in 1964, Paul R. Pioszak, the son of two school teachers, received a degree in creative writing from Western Michigan University where he ran track and cross country. He wrote the first drafts of Plank Fence in Walcz, Poland whilst a Peace Corps volunteer working for the University of Gdansk. He is a member of the rock and roll band the Huntunes, who published two CDs I Want to be a Communist and McGurk’s Suicide Hall in 1989 and 1992, respectively. He now teaches and writes in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan.