The women in Acts of Contrition face society's devaluation, from parents, from elders, from all who assume authority over them. They battle oppressions as simple as gender stereotyping, as complex as prerequisites to friendship or love. Some can look back and laugh, some find luck in their escape from harm, some engineer their own good fortune, all the while riding a wave of dark humor. What all the characters come to understand is that silence places them at greater risk than speaking out. They progress toward freedom through the telling of their stories.

Act of Contrition focuses on the intimate relationship between Regina, a widow, and Michael, a young doctor whose wife left him for another man. Having found happiness in one another, they desire nothing more than to be together. Yet in the eyes of the Catholic Church, Michael is not free to divorce his wife and marry Regina. In an emotional climax Regina must decide if she loves Michael enough to give him up or if she'll force him to choose between her and God. By modern standards, Giles's love scenes are tasteful, and the general atmosphere of ecumenism within today's Catholic Church renders moot many of the tensions in the novel. Yet in 1957 Giles's agent and publisher feared the work would cause "irreparable harm" to her reputation. As late as 1972 Giles was revising in the hopes of seeing the novel published. Finally her wish is fulfilled. Janice Holt Giles (1905-1979), author of nineteen books, lived and wrote near Knifley, Kentucky, for thirty-four years. Her biography is Janice Holt Giles: A Writer's Life.

Indentation and Other Stories is a collection of nine stories ranging from the wildly funny and idiosyncratic to the downright bizarre. The title story features a pathological dentist who seeks a quirky catharsis by decorating his apartment in hygienic dental paraphernalia. Other tales frolic through the lives of characters who border on the delightfully absurd: a woman, after going through menopause, struggles to recreate her menstrual periods by altering her diet; a former New York street reporter, fired because of his "ideals," aspires to become a credible street person and decides, tentatively, to have a religious experience; an English major turned psychologist writes a pseudoscientific "article"—complete with footnotes and a University of New Jersey cover letter—which argues, by example, for the use of figurative language in scientific journal writing. Other stories are more humanizing: "The Perils of Asthma" is a sympathetic lok at a twelve-year-old boy struggling to grow up amidst his perplexing asthma, his eccentric Catholic parents, and his mystifying quasi-erections. All of the stories are grounded in the allure of language, the luxuriance of detail, and the celebration of human compulsion and obsession.

In masterful tales of coming of age and becoming marginalized during the Cuban Revolution and its aftermath, Pablo La Rosa nostalgically looks back at a childhood spent by the seaside and creates a mosaic of poignant experiences seen through the glaring lens of race and exile. Neither the advantages of race or education, however, can exempt the disoriented protagonist from their perceived loss of homeland, integrity, identity. In the masterful ñEl Marielito,î La Rosa captures the bewilderment of a black man, marginalized by his race and circumstances in pre and post revolutionary Cuba and during his exile in the United States. Equally on the margin in spite of the advantages of education and race, a Cuban college student can relate only to a Russian janitor; though they share no common language they wordlessly share a longing for their lost homelands. La Rosa exhibits a penchant for the whimsical and experimental in homage to Latin American masters Jose Donoso, Carlos Fuentes, and Julio Cortàzar. His stylistic journey takes us from the magically real to psychological suspense and adventure. La RosaÍs masterful pen captivates our imagination and projects the reader into the souls of his characters.

A Katrina survivor waits for rescue on his roof in the brutal heat, reflecting on the life choices that brought him to this moment. A young woman discovers there’s more to her perfect man than she thought. A gay journalist travels to Italy to interview his teen idol, only to discover a darkness in the Tuscan hills. A gay man cleans his home, reflecting on his sociopathic criminal mother. Chanse MacLeod returns to his hometown to help his younger brother, accused of murder. A daughter keeps her father’s legacy alive while hiding his darkest secrets. Including five new stories written for this collection (along with the first-ever Chanse MacLeod short story), Greg Herren’s tales of murder, crime, and the darkness that lives inside all of us are evocative of the proud Southern Gothic tradition of writers and are now available, for the first time, in a single collection.

This is the autobiography of a surgeon who began life in the Bronx, New York. His colorful memoirs describe his childhood and education, and critically analyze scientific contributions in vascular disease, shock and treatment of impotence. He describes what it was like do general practice in the Bronx along with experiences in New York City; in Seville, Spain as a young Air Force Officer; residency and practice in Cleveland, Ohio; Reno, Nevada; and Washington DC. Dr. De Palma reflects upon life in rapidly changing times as well as responsibilities and uncertainties that exist in academic medicine and research.