Jack's Fiction Blog

High Street

2008-12-21T18:28:00.001-08:00

Jamie Boyer sits in a stark homeless shelter in one of the seedier areas just off of High Street, certain that he has messed up his life forever. The young man had left his home on the farm just six months earlier for college in the big city. His life is shattered after falling in with the wrong crowd and getting mixed up with alcohol and drugs. From the times he attended church while growing up, Jamie knows that he is running from God. The squalor and hopelessness of the homeless culture horrifies him, yet in shame he refuses to call home. Back in Shelby County, Martha Boyer worries about her missing son. She knows that she is not right with God herself, and is guilt-ridden. The occasional church visits have only made her more miserable. High Street cuts through the heart of Columbus, Ohio. On the way, it snakes along a sprawling college campus offering rowdy bars and good times to young people who have just left home, and slides by dirty, crime-infested areas of the city that most try to ignore. Can Jamie work his way out of this problems alone, and will anything really be different if he gets back to the college bars on High Street?

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This novel is available at Amazon.com, BuyBooksOnTheWeb.com, Barnes&Noble.com and through the national wholesale distributor Ingram Book Group.

Hard Pursuit

2008-06-22T18:10:00.000-07:00

Normal, middle-class people deal with the toughness of life during a bad economy in this collection of short fiction. Each story is somehow connected to Conglomorous Technologies, a Maryland defense contractor that suddenly begins downsizing after years of growth and success. The layoffs are a shock to employees from various lifestyles who work together in a common environment as accepted as breathing the same air and drinking the same water. The fear of losing their job is felt by all, and though they have different views on life they also have much in common—and all need income to pay the bills.

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This book of short stories is available at

Amazon.com, BuyBooksOnTheWeb.com, Barnes&Noble.com and through the national wholesale distributor Ingram Book Group.

Peculiar Tales -- Edgar Curry

2008-06-22T18:07:00.001-07:00

Peculiar Tales is a collection of short fiction that I’ve worked on, off and on, for years. I decided to post a couple of stories from this in-work book to see what people thought. Edgar Curry is the story of a man who was a worldly success, riding the wave of the dot-com boom through 1999 & 2000. But then, his world was turned upside down as he lost everything he had during the unexpected downturn in the industry. The story is posted as a pdf below. Just click the link. You can print it, and save it to your computer. The document has an excellent cover photo by Walter Arnold. Feel free to email it around. I’d like to get some feedback about what you think!

Edgar Curry -- PDF

Edgar Curry looked out at the lights of the city as if watching the world disappearing through the rear window of a car. The lights atop of the Tribune Tower were visible now, from across the Chicago River, but the gothic stone walls and flying buttresses that he’d stared at for much of the day were now unseen...

Peculiar Tales -- Steven

2008-06-22T18:04:00.000-07:00

Here's another story from my Peculiar Tales collection -- Steven. This one is also posted as a pdf. Just click the link below. Feel free to print it, save it to your computer, and email it around. I’d like to get some feedback about what you think!

Steven -- PDF

It is inherent in evil to hate everything that is good, and it is inherent in good to hate everything that is evil. This is all very clear—however, it is also inherent in evil to hate clarity. Clarity leads to understanding and clear choices, while evil advances easier in misunderstanding and confusion. And in the battle of earth between God and Satan, there are few people as valuable to Satan as Steven Laughlin...