Amplitude of the Cosmos

About the Book

A collection of 9 narratives. Each of them employs some original narrative technique. The result is an adventure in form and content, one in which neither writer nor have any clear notion at the outset as to where they will end up.

[1]  The Drugstore :   Time stands still in an antiseptic ambiance of neon and vinyl plastic. Hero and anti-hero, criminal and businessman, socialite and pariah are all submerged in the final catastrophe, only to be resurrected in strange configurations.

[2]  3 Weddings : At these demonic nuptials it is the power of music which, unshackling the forces latent in dreams , unite , through  joy and horror, bride, groom and community to a higher marriage .

[3] Logan Airport  : Jet travel as 20th century metaphor of freedom. Through techniques of intercutting and a disembodied chronology, the reader experiences that deracination of mind and heart characterizing our age.

[4] Cats and Crazy Razors :  A neuroleptic legend of cats, lovers, mad doctors and razors cast in the form of a nightmare.

[5] Amplitude of the Cosmos :  A  trio of love-stricken classical musicians,   Austrian cellist Dietrich Zinzindorf , Japanese violinist Mitzi Kagami,  and embittered French celesta player Jean-François Asperge ,  weaves around the Marlboro Music Festival. Death, playing a unique  medley of world musics, puts in a guest appearance.  Eternal triangles and other percussive effects.

[6] Willy van Fritz  : A cocktail party at a prestigious art opening is dominated by the antics of a virtuous pianist/composer. Not even bloody mayhem will deter him from claiming the center of attention.

[7]  Persephone : A poetic retelling , with philosophical interpretation,  of the Greek legend.

[8]  The Woman of the Forest : A fertility myth with sources in medieval legend.

About the Author

Born in Philadelphia in 1938, Roy Lisker has been in turn mathematician, researcher, teacher. political activist, writer and musician. In the 60’s he worked as an organizer in the movement against the war in Vietnam. He has published articles, stories, poetry, music, translations and scientific papers in the United States and Europe. A novel, “ Getting That Meal Ticket”, was published in France in 1972, by Editions Rene Julliard. For two decades he has produced a newsletter of fiction, travel , coverage and opinion , Ferment. Since 1955 he has lived in Middletown, Connecticut.