Vacancies

by Robert T. Raker Jr.

When we meet the first character, the playwright, he is on a plane incoming to Paris, remembering his child and wife, who have almost inexplicably deserted him. As his plane passes overhead, in the cobblestone streets below, the classical piano player, who lives above the cafe Le Malakoff, is waking up in her empty and noiseless flat, dealing with the suicide of her lover, a logger. Left alone with no answers, she sees him everywhere and tries to find eroticism in everything she sees, questioning her own sensuality. When she passes a hospital we meet a homosexual activist, who led a band of liberators against the Nazis during the German Occupation of Paris during World War II. Dying of brain cancer, he hallucinates and through his narration we learn of a betrayal only death can overcome and forgive.

192 pages, Paperback

First published August 8, 2001