From the title essay “The Name In the Stone”
My name, “Gerard Van der Leun,” is an unusual one – so unusual that I’ve never met anyone else with the same name. I know about one other man with my name, but we’ve never met. I’ve seen his name in an unusual place. …
From “Saving Escudo”
A time long ago, when my first marriage was fresh and new, I lived in a small villa along the coast of the Algarve in Portugal. At the end of the dirt road that ran down to the lighthouse, my rooftop terrace looked out across the straits towards Casablanca on the North African coast. …
From “The Wedding Vows”:
The first time I was married I was married to over two hundred naked people. We weren’t quite buck naked. The men wore crudely made laurel wreaths on their heads …
From “My Cut-Rate Resurrection”:
Beginning on October 13, 2011, I spent eleven days among the dead and then was returned to life. Why and for what I still cannot say. What I can say is that, in some brief and infinitesimal way, I have had a small shimmer of the Resurrection shine upon my dead shadow and raise me back into the light. It was a tiny touch and yet it would seem that was all it took. This time. …
From “A Paradise Trilogy”:
The first day they let us back in I drove through fog as dense as the smoke that had driven me out. The burned hulks of cars and the opened guts of houses lined the roads, along with the cleanup crews in their yellow vests. …