The Zodiac Club

You know. Those times you feel utterly misunderstood. You couldn't begin to tell someone else why things are so screwed up. Then you will relate to the people drawn so well in these stories by James Casper.

In the title story, a woman hosts an exclusive Zodiac club in her home. She sees no reason to justify her open affair with the one they all call Scorpio; even her kids think he's cool. Her husband comes up with some strange coping mechanisms.

In another story, a deathly shy man finds the perfect job all alone on a mountainside until a comet comes along and ruins everything.

Another hardworking man returns from the war and raises his wife's illegitimate child while dreaming of a better life.

People trying to get things right, people trying to make things right, people hoping there is a way for everything to turn out right in the end.

In Casper's beautiful prose, characters become real people you invest in and root for, laugh about and cry about. Timed just right to keep you wondering till the very end, each story leaves you with a sense of place and time you will not easily forget as you ride along with the changing circumstances the characters brave, bluff and guess their way through.