Items in cart - View Cart - About Us
- Authors
- Poems
- Reviews
- Interviews
- Photo Gallery
- Azsacra Award
- Literary Essays
- Testimonials
Authors
Keep in touch
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
 |
|
||||||||||||||
Gaither Stewart regularly writes at the intersection of history, fiction, and his own considerable experience as bothwriter and citizen of the world. This brings a poignancy to his writing, mixed with the very human struggles of self and relationship that frequently occur at historical crucibles such as WWII, the cold war, western imperialism in Mexico and South America - as in this collection of short stories - or the contemporary military chess moves - as in his Europa Trilogy: The Trojan Spy, Lily Pad Roll, and Time of Exile. In Signs of the Time, the reader takes a journey with ordinary people who are each extraordinary in their own way. We see the world through their eyes. This is the gift of Stewart’s art and is amply demonstrated in this fine collection of short stories. WITHOUT EVER KNOWING HOW WE GOT THERE By Rowan Wolf This collection of short stories by Gaither Stewart takes readers on a journey of the human drama; those questions that take us into and out of ourselves; those reflections that question time, history, our interactions with them and energetic influences that run between us and them and our actions within the resulting context. This collection is being released in the midst of a pandemic which aside from an historical context is also characterized by increased isolation around the globe. We are social creatures and prolonged disruption of interaction, such as this pandemic has brought on us, is creating conditions that expose our raw edges. This makes Signs of the Times even more pertinent and Stewart explores those things that eat away at us – particularly under stress. Critical issues such as who we are and where we are going; the uncertainty of choices made in times where basic survival may be on the line; and managing relationships that may be too intense from too close prolonged proximity or failing relationships from absence. Stewart is a master at navigating these turbulent waters with his characters, and we can see our struggles and insecurities in their lives, just as we can identify with the quest towards integrity. Historical context is virtually its own character in a good story, even if that is a completely fabricated history as with much science fiction. These stories in Signs of the Times seamlessly integrate the autobiographical and the historical; Stewart frequently writes historical fiction where the intertwining of the personal with the historical provides windows into the lived experience of epic times. How characters conceptualize themselves and the world around them and act upon those conceptualizations, gives us not only a deeper connection to those times but a reservoir of possibilities for dealing with high stress (even chaotic) periods in our own lives. This does not make this collection, or any work of Stewart’s, a self-help guide, but it is my belief that reading good stories does make us deeper people if for no other reason than we are exposed to the inside of the lives of his characters in ways we rarely experience at scale with day-to-day interaction. And Gaither Stewart is a very good storyteller. I regularly write introductions for the works of various authors, and hands down it is Gaither’s short stories that most regularly trigger my imagination as well as my critical skills. I have thought long and hard about why this is, and I believe it is because of the rich, multilevel tapestry of his work. In what seems an effortless style he draws readers into his world that frequently places characters at the conjunction of human events, deeply personal explorations and relationships, and even global contexts that color everything like imperialism past and present. As his characters look inward and question themselves, we may recognize questions with which we have struggled. However, this is not simple navel-gazing, for we enter realms of philosophy and metaphysics without ever knowing how we got there. In this sense, Gaither Stewart is a magician, and his magic is amply represented in Signs of the Times. I recommend it to you without reservation and believe it will leave you eagerly awaiting his next story. --Rowan Wolf, Sociologist and Editor-Publisher of Uncommon Thought Journal
From Airy Nothing To Local Habitation And A Name
Excellent collection of short stories that takes its readers on a long trip, a quest, both external and internal. Stewart's protagonists are artists and seekers. They are restless souls who find temporary harmony with their environment, and then push further. Mysterious, arrogant, noble, entrepreneurial, conniving, the heroes of these stories, do the best they can to match the mystery of places that they inhabit. And these places are magnificent and magnificently captured by Stewart's pen: Rome, Havana, Paris, Munich, Mexico City, Paris, small towns of Italy and Mexico. The pleasure one gets just reading about the streets, hotels, museums, houses, pianos, piazzas, and cafes is amazing. Especially at this time of covid, one is forever grateful to the author for this amazing ride that invokes smells, and sights, and tastes of our wonderful planet. But inner search is equally fascinating. Musicians, dancers, revolutionaries, they all are plagued by nostalgia and melancholy, nostalgia for this paradise that we are bound to yearn for and seek, be it in a sound of a piano, in the eyes of a lover, or in the sunrise on the top of a mountain. Each character is unique and different, each has a strong symbiotic relationship with his or her surroundings, each vividly invokes the culture and history that surrounds them. Yet, they are more than just exotic, alluring, and strange. They share something that unites us all. As Stewart puts it in one of his stories: "Everything in our world, every object and every person, point back toward the revelation of the mystery of existence and its one common origin." "The circles that they find in the windmills of their minds" -- one character returns to this famous song again and again -- these are our circles as well. We all lose, we all seek, we all yearn for transcendence, for the revelation of the mystery. But very few can describe it as elegantly and beautifully as Gaither Stewart.
--Vladimir Golstein, Professor of Slavic Studies at Brown University |
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
