As the Mist Resembles the Rain

In this collection of stories we find the world's smartest dog that has senses not understood - he's also a killer. We find a mother who carries a fifty-five year grudge against her son to her grave, a beating that takes more than twelve years to revenge, a one-legged Vietnam vet intent on murder and an eight year old boy frightened by a thunderstorm and . . . This varied mix of short stories contains pieces of the author's life. The pieces, however, are not portraits but snapshots. Fred Shaw tells these in a style that is straightforward with little adornment, allowing the reader to fill in the blanks where needed. There is truth and there is fiction. Fred seeks truth in the reaction of the characters to guilt, greed and the many pitfalls of the human condition created by his fictional settings. Several of the stories are memoirs whose truth is blurred by time but nonetheless still seek the actual, true response to a situation. There is little presented for historical purposes but the places and the times are coincident with his life. The protagonist might be called Fred, Harry, Buck or Cliff but they are all distorted pictures of the writer. The title piece, "As the Mist Resembles the Rain", is a short reminiscence explaining to the reader that all of these stories are told through the filter of the many years of his life.