NORA'S TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS & OTHER STORIES

About the Book

Pretend, for a moment, that you´d never read Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Richard Wright, or a Flannery O´Connor. Imagine you´re reading them for the first time as unknown writers. Such a thing couldn´t happen in today´s world, right? But what if a major talent was out there? Suppose he´d written in a vacuum? Kept his whereabouts a secret? Before you take another sip of coffee, ask yourself, "Who is Frank Ross?" If you don´t know - you´d better grab your seat.

About the Author

THE LEAF STREWN PATH, the first collection of Frank Ross' short fiction to be published, has won him immediate recognition as one of the most gifted of American writers. Though I am quite impressed with his work there are obvious shortcomings. For some of the stories are flawed, unbalanced, and not fully fleshed out - but even with my disclaimer, all of these pieces are good. And I'll go on the record to predict that one or two of the tales will become modern day classics. Cleta, the lighthouse story, was my favorite. After all the years of avoiding seafaring topics I found myself smitten by Captain Jonathan's last working day. This epic was a major literary achievement. Until lately, the author has discouraged any investigation of his whereabouts. That proved to be a strategic move of genius. For his writings were never judged as a prison writer but on its own merit. He learned his craft while serving a life sentence in a maximum-security penitentiary. He accomplished that among the assaults, stabbings, killings, and lockdowns which come with the territory. This collection is like a road map of the author's journey in his fictional world, step by step. His creative process is not only unique but almost haunting. He explained it this way: "... When I get an idea for a story it's like a movie playing in my head. I see the characters right in front of me, so I walk behind them and listen while they talk...." Frank Ross/COURIER-POST NJ. THE LEAF STREWN PATH demonstrates the author's immense ability in crossing ethnic and gender lines at will. One of his masterful arts is the way he can introduce the readers to a given situation - then go and put you through different highs and lows - to the point of biting your nails about an outcome that you already know. A good example of this extraordinary skill is depicted in a story where the main character has been selected by his siblings to let their mother know she has terminal cancer. The readers know this within a few paragraphs - but before you know it, you're caught up in the moving moments between a son and his mother. At one point she grabs him by the arm, calling him a death messenger - and later, after gathering herself she sees her fingernail prints on his arm - she tells him that she's sorry - but he makes her burst out laughing when he replies - no, you're not. What I've found true in all the great writers are how they can stir the hearts of the readers with those small details that often go unnoticed. Here, again, Frank Ross shows his style at exploring the emotional subjects that know no geographic boundaries. Also, the author has chosen a small sketch to proceed each short story which serves as a ghostly focus - of living and dying from a prisoner's world of bars and steel. If that wasn't enough, there's the intimated and candid exchanges in THE INTERVIEW. Frank Ross' short stories collection are deceptively simple. They're concerned with the ordinary folks, but what happens to them along the way turns out to be far from ordinary. There is even in the smallest story a sense of power that makes me believe that though this is a splendid beginning - there's much greater things to come. Frank Ross was born and reared in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania