Glimpses

by Jim Hartsell

Glimpses is a non-fiction collection, with a touch of poetic license thrown in. From the uplifting experience of a friend’s confirmation service to a first-hand account of the church shooting in 2008, from the narrow world of small town life to the unexpected diagnostic techniques of a new doctor, these eleven short pieces - ten stories and one poem - sometimes funny, sometimes touching, sometimes horrific, sometimes inspiring, offer brief looks into my life and the lives of those around me.Drawn from the past half century or so, these vignettes illustrate some of the breadth and depth of what can be seen and experienced in an ordinary life’s journey. Of course the beauty and mystery of it all is that there is so much more, it is so wide and so deep, that what we can see and hear and feel are only glimpses.

78 pages, Paperback

First published August 3, 2014

About the author

Like most of us, there are many descriptors that apply to me: husband, father, grandfather, voracious reader, and average hammer dulcimer player are a few of them. I also write, concentrating on Southern fiction and children’s books.
During my seven decades I have lived in a total of three counties, all in East Tennessee, and all contiguous; in one of those counties is the farm that’s been in our family for five generations. I have deep roots in this area. My immediate family consists of my wife of 40+ years, my two children, their spouses, and, at the moment, a total of six grandchildren. I have been assured that six is it, but I remain skeptical. My wife and I share our home on House Mountain with a cat and two shelter dogs.
My professional career was spent in education, working with teens in various treatment centers, locked units, residential facilities, and public school alternative classrooms. These decades spent with teens who were characterized as losers at best and dangerous at worst taught me much about resilience, strength, and bravery, and helped form the concept of the main character in the Boone series. It has been said that the problem with stereotypes isn’t that they aren’t true, but that they are incomplete. Certainly this is the case with the young people I spent so much time with, who are more like the rest of us than not.
I have a beautiful family, all the necessities of life plus a few luxuries, a fine circle of friends, and time to write books, play music, and enjoy the moments as they present themselves one by one. By any measure that matters to me, I am a very wealthy man.

Reviews

[Wayne Zurl · Rating 5 out of 5]

GLIMPSES by Jim Hartsell…..

This book reminded me a lot of Truman Capote’s A CHRISTMAS MEMORY; not because it had anything to do with Christmas or fruit cake or an Indian named Mr. Haha. Because it’s eleven GLIMPSES of life in America—well written and dealing with issues anyone of us could face on any given day.

What do you do when a madman walks into your church and starts blasting away with a shotgun? I remember when that happened and apparently Jim Hartsell was there. What do you do when you and your fiancé attempt to arrange your wedding with a minister and he does his best to tell you marriage is a big mistake? What do you do when a very large and mentally disturbed man walks into your home and doesn’t want to leave?

Get the answers to those questions and eight more when you read this delightful collection of short stories. 5 stars.