Harlan Bosmajian

An unforgettable portrait of immigrant life in a collection of four stories about love, hope, and loss: a day laborer paid to gather bricks from an abandoned lot meets a tragic end; a young man newly arrived from Mexico falls in love with a girl from his home village; a homeless puppeteer dreams of a better life for his daughter; and a seamstress is in desperate need of money to send home for her daughter's medical treatment.

A character driven piece tells the story of several New Yorkers - an oddball office shrink, a cluelessly competitive pastry chef, and a flirtatious security guard - reveal their eccentric private stories.

Battling illness and unable to finish a novel that has taken him ten years to write, aging novelist Leonard Schiller is slipping into literary obscurity. At one time a famous author, Schiller has been all but forgotten by the readers, colleagues and critics who once praised his works. When Heather Wolfe, an ambitious graduate student, convinces Schiller that her thesis could reintroduce his writing to the world, the reclusive writer is forced to confront...