The Scary Parts

Each of these twelve stories picks apart a different anxiety or fear. From the outside, other people, the actualized human beings among us, appear to be blessed with serenity and purpose and gratifying relationships. But poke around under the covers. That's where they hide The Scary Parts. A medical careerist's trajectory slides toward treachery. A young creative gun is seduced by darkness he hadn't known existed. An enviable wife trails her vanished marriage into an unknown zone. The transparent social ceiling crushes a status-starved couple. Genital wrongdoing derails a divorcee's fresh start. An Incongruous adult and girl dare to take their jarring sex public. Man and wife shy away from sparking a brave encounter. An artist's soul hides within an impenetrable, ludicrous costume. The highway to romance misses the exit of no return. Isolation eats around the fringes at a wedding celebration. The philosophy of wise cowardice is put to its ultimate test. A spellbound storyteller laments. No one is in the mood to listen. On their surface and in their depths, The Scary Parts are profoundly superficial.