Halflife

Halflife is a fictive memoir, hovering between fiction and biography. Deciding that half his life is over, a young man recalls stories of people, animals, plants, and places that he he has known. Just as matter decays according to its own physical half life, these accounts are bound together by themes of loss, but they also reverberate with creation and delight. The metaphor of halflife, the measure of physical decay, weaves in and out of the stories. The soothing of loss is found in the observation of life around us. The journey unwinds in five chapters that describe mountains, desert, Villa Trice (a mysterious estate in Texas), Aquidneck Island, and Memphis, Tenessee. The writing is crisp and elegant. The author is an artist, architect, and historian. Halflife is his first work of fiction and memoir.