Things We Do When No One Is Watching

by Philip Gerard

Overview

One Gerard character says that “childhood is a dangerous country,

and not all of us make it out alive”—a powerful theme that runs

through these beautifully crafted, moving stories. Those who do

make it out alive are left trying to make sense of the memories,

those defining times when one stands at the cusp of childhood

comfort and the reality of violence and death and sheer bad

luck. Likewise there are moments when wishes come true and

one glimpses something pure and good. These characters move

through the flicker of light and dark as they grasp and shape their

life stories with sharp detail and a poignant longing.

—Jill McCorkle, Life After Life, The Cheerleader

These beautifully constructed, visionary stories left me enthralled

evening after evening. The book is so close to its events and

Gerard is so skilled at turning these events into meaning that the

reader is reminded again and again that literature is the great

companion and interpreter of life. This collection—intelligent

and big-hearted—is a gift from a master storyteller to readers.

—Rebecca Lee, The City Is a Rising Tide, Bobcat

Philip Gerard is a magnificent storyteller, and in this moving and

poignant collection, he manages to achieve a kind of nostalgia

that is alternately realistic and dreamy and, when least expected,

swiftly punctured with brutality.

—Julianna Baggott, Burn, Pure

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781943491094
Publisher:	BkMk Press at the University of Missouri-Kansas City
Publication date:	11/01/2017
Pages:	174
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Philip Gerard is the author of four novels and seven books of nonfiction, most recently The Art of Creative Research—A Field Guide for Writers, the novel The Dark of the Island and THINGS WE DO WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING (BkMk Press, 2017). He teaches in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Table of Contents

Night Camp 9

Gloriana 19

Stepping Into Flight 29

Miracle Boy 37

Ace 51

O Canada 69

The Circus Train 81

Death by Reputation 93

Flexible Flyer 109

This Is the Story I Want To Tell 123

Davey Terwilliger 141

The Man Who Fell Out of the Sky 145

In Dreams Begin 157

Things We Do When No One Is Watching 163

Editorial Reviews

Resonant and lyrical tales of the dangers and frustrations of life at all ages.

—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2017-07-17
An intimate look at lives both everyday and surreal.The stories in this collection abound with reminders of mortality, characters who live on the periphery of death, and harbingers of ominous fates to come. "Childhood is a dangerous country," says the narrator of the title story—a statement that could be the thesis for this entire collection. (Though adulthood doesn't fare much better.) The narrator of "The Man Who Fell Out of the Sky" is forced to grapple with the responsibilities he inherits after a friend dies in a plane crash and his own talent for disseminating bad news. At the center of "Miracle Boy" is a comatose child whose presence seemingly heals the sick, even as he himself is unable to regain consciousness. While some of these stories cover familiar thematic territory—family responsibilities, the flawed bonds between parents and children—Gerard is at his best when he veers into the surreal. "Gloriana," for instance, boasts a great opening sentence: "There are rules about ghosts, as everybody knows." The story that follows blends mystery and hints of the supernatural to create a beguiling result. And "Night Camp," which opens the book, is structured as its narrator's memories of his time working at a camp for children who, for reasons physical and psychological, were on a nocturnal schedule. It's a haunting beginning, reminiscent of Ray Bradbury in both its nostalgia and its glimpses of something sinister below the surface. The story showcases the empathy that runs throughout the book and establishes larger themes of memory's fallibility and the way that youth does not exempt people from harm. The best of these stories tell resonant and lyrical tales of the dangers and frustrations of life at all ages.

Kirkus Reviews