Triangle Ray by John Holman
Triangle Ray is a collection of short stories linked by the character of Ray Fielding, introduced first as a young black man coming of age in the 1980s and infatuated with his schoolmate, the brilliant, miraculous Marie. Against the wishes of their families, the two marry just out of high school, but the marriage falls apart within a few years as time makes them strangers to each other. Twenty years later, Ray is unmarried and still searching for a lasting connection—with his friend Dexter and his wife Olivia, whose name is so beautiful Ray has to ugly it up; with his cousin Barbara, raising her child while chasing an easy way out; and with passionate, mercurial Alma, a woman with whom Ray collides at right angles, a fleeting love affair neither of them can keep alive.
With sharp prose and startling insight, John Holman illuminates issues of race and class within the context of one man’s search for love and belonging, exploring the motives behind the ways we retell our stories and how we ignore or embrace the future that is already taking shape.
Publication Date: January 5, 2016
Paperback: 192 pages
ISBN: 978-1-938103-37-7
Also available as an eBook
Triangle Ray is a collection of short stories linked by the character of Ray Fielding, introduced first as a young black man coming of age in the 1980s and infatuated with his schoolmate, the brilliant, miraculous Marie. Against the wishes of their families, the two marry just out of high school, but the marriage falls apart within a few years as time makes them strangers to each other. Twenty years later, Ray is unmarried and still searching for a lasting connection—with his friend Dexter and his wife Olivia, whose name is so beautiful Ray has to ugly it up; with his cousin Barbara, raising her child while chasing an easy way out; and with passionate, mercurial Alma, a woman with whom Ray collides at right angles, a fleeting love affair neither of them can keep alive.
With sharp prose and startling insight, John Holman illuminates issues of race and class within the context of one man’s search for love and belonging, exploring the motives behind the ways we retell our stories and how we ignore or embrace the future that is already taking shape.
Publication Date: January 5, 2016
Paperback: 192 pages
ISBN: 978-1-938103-37-7
Also available as an eBook
Triangle Ray is a collection of short stories linked by the character of Ray Fielding, introduced first as a young black man coming of age in the 1980s and infatuated with his schoolmate, the brilliant, miraculous Marie. Against the wishes of their families, the two marry just out of high school, but the marriage falls apart within a few years as time makes them strangers to each other. Twenty years later, Ray is unmarried and still searching for a lasting connection—with his friend Dexter and his wife Olivia, whose name is so beautiful Ray has to ugly it up; with his cousin Barbara, raising her child while chasing an easy way out; and with passionate, mercurial Alma, a woman with whom Ray collides at right angles, a fleeting love affair neither of them can keep alive.
With sharp prose and startling insight, John Holman illuminates issues of race and class within the context of one man’s search for love and belonging, exploring the motives behind the ways we retell our stories and how we ignore or embrace the future that is already taking shape.
Publication Date: January 5, 2016
Paperback: 192 pages
ISBN: 978-1-938103-37-7
Also available as an eBook
PRAISE FOR JOHN HOLMAN
“Clear images, brilliantly concise writing, and hidden metaphors speak well for Holman.... In many ways the work is reminiscent of Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.”
—The Tampa Tribune
“Holman’s fiction is a must-read.... Employs the con- sciousness of a keenly observant man who reveals the complexities of the black experience and demonstrates fluent language in a rich and imagistic read.”
—The Independent (London)
“Virtually every page carries some variation on the top-of-the-Ferris-wheel feeling a kid gets.... In Holman’s sublimely nuanced world, anticipation is everything.”
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Holman is the author of Squabble and Other Stories and Luminous Mysteries, a novel. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Oxford American, Mississippi Review, Fiction, Terminus, and other journals. He graduated from North Carolina Central University with an M.A. and from the University of Southern Mississippi with a Ph.D. He is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Georgia State University at Atlanta and lives in Decatur, GA.
