ORPHANS stories

Set in 1940s Florida, Middle America, Hollywood in the 70s, curious netherspheres between life and death, and deep inside the imaginations of characters whose greatest abundances are their emotions, the ten stories (and smattering of poems) in Cummings's eclectic collection 'Orphans' evoke familiar and strange scenarios of love, loss, heartbreak, humor, spirituality, sexuality, and the quelling of violence. An unhappy housewife mired by the ravages of war fantasizes about killing her own daughter. An unlikely couple in the heart of Americana is brought together by strange sparks of magic trapped in a horoscopes column. The dark but achingly honest confessions of a Hollywood icon's emotionally deranged son cause him to band together with like-minded misfits. A play about a sweet, sickly little boy illuminates a weird world of living, corporeal dolls that gently dance him to his imminent death. And there is more. In this refreshingly unpredictable assortment of short stories, poems, plays, and screenplays, a strong and imaginative new voice in American literature spins a majestic web of people, places, relationships, and situations.