A Smith

Renting the Veil A Smith

Shattered by the sudden death of his young wife, assailed by flickering lights and knocking on his bedroom walls, with three young children to raise and a professional image to maintain, Joe doesn?t know where to turn. The world of the psyche was Evie?s domain. Bereft and bewildered, he discreetly elicits the assistance of a psychic, his introduction to the local New Age Community. Angels, dreams, synchronicity, shamanic forces, past lives, parallel universes, and "places where the material and spiritual worlds has thinned" are all explored in his desperate attempt for solace and connection. Uncannily mirroring his spiral through the stages of grief, is a hilarious gallery of colorful clients, volatile and vulnerable, Joe represents in his law practice. Weaving through the story as well, a valuable coin passes through many undiscerning hands, paralleling the narrator's elusive search. The narrator's longing for his deceased wife has been described as haunting as Orpheus' for Eurydice, the theater of the absurd depictions of his law practice, the time travel and dislocations reminiscent of Vonnegut, and his futile obsessiveness as redolent of Poe. Renting the Veil is a mystery, a novel, a timeless love story and a modern tale of discovery.