Ten Stories - Paperback

by Paul Cumbo (Author)

INSIDE TEN STORIES...

A young girl at the zoo comes face-to-face with a four-hundred-pound gorilla that seems to be in on her guilty secret.

When they steal a bike from a reclusive neighbor's shed, three middle school boys discover a history of tragic loss in their Adirondack town.

A collegiate swimmer who's never been fooled by boys discovers that she's fooled herself over one: the young philosophy professor who swims in the university pool.

When his older cousin meets a seductive woman in a 1969 Thunderbird, a boy gets a revealing look at the thrill of teenage life.

A young state trooper carries a diamond ring in his pocket across an Arizona desert highway, hesitant to make his move, until circumstances speed things up.

A veteran literature teacher comes to grips with the true power of final chapters on his last day in the classroom.

Awash in the excitement of a lucrative first job, a fresh-faced college graduate gets a dose of reality on the streets of New York.

Set in varied landscapes, these ten short stories provide glimpses of humanity from a multitude of angles. They tell of men, women, children, and families at different stages of life's journey: beginnings, endings, and stops along the way. Each portrays ordinary people at extraordinary moments - both joyful and tragic - that shape their experience of the world.

Author Biography

Paul Cumbo is a high school English teacher and rowing coach. Publisher's Weekly called his first book, Boarding Pass, "a tender coming-of-age novel, evocative of A Separate Peace." He lives in Buffalo, New York with his wife and son.