Has the Spirit of O Henry Come to Rest Inside a Guyanese-American Grandfather?

Online, October 23, 2010 (Newswire.com) - CONCORD, CA: A grown woman the wife has never seen before leaves a message for her husband: "Your daughter stopped by." A retired bus diver reminiscing over photographs has to face the broken promise he made to his dying wife. A miser lies helpless and trapped when his favorite chair gives way during a cold snap. An estranged son keeps the secret that his hated neighbors are really his parents. A man discovers that his unmarried best friend, whom he'd thought to be gay, has a secret passion for his own wife.

These are just a few of the many situations in People Plural, the debut collection of 60 short stories - he calls them "glimpses" - by Emrys Lloyd-Roberts (published by London-based Athena Press, ISBN 978-1-84748-596-0, $11.95).

Like O Henry and Guy de Maupassant before him, Lloyd-Roberts is master of the surprise twist, the ending rich in irony: logical once it arrives, but impossible to predict. And like those master story-tellers, Lloyd-Roberts can develop deep and complex characters in a page or two - often using the character's own words:

"She been on a new diet. She really needed it too, I can tell you!... I tried it for a week but it was obviously not for me. I didn't lose anything. And I stuck with it for the whole week. Except for when your father took me out. I couldn't make him unhappy by not taking my appetite with me, could I? (From "Diseases")

Or their acute powers of observation:

[The room] told of excessive nothing-else-to-do: the chair by the window, the other chair by the fireplace, where he now sat; the books on the tiny table, the television in the corner, the radio on the old chest of drawers. I saw the photographs stacked on most of the available places and littering his walls. (From "Photographs")

One reader, writing on Amazon, called these glimpses:

Evocative, provocative...glimpses of human action and interaction in a variety of settings and situations. He only needs a couple of pages or so for each glance at everyday folks, some familiar, some not, but each with something special to say. Whether it's a child learning about her colorful but false ancestry, a bride overhearing secrets about her groom on their wedding day or someone devastated by the identity of a mysterious neighbor, you'll be drawn to and into these compelling, all-too-human situations.

Born in Guyana, South America, Emrys Lloyd-Roberts has lived in Canada and the U.K. (where he was a Nominated Officer in the Court of Protection in London). Trainer as a teacher and a paralegal, he lives in Concord, California and has three children and six grandchildren.

Order People Plural from Amazon.com or through your local bookstore.

Journalists: to interview Lloyd-Roberts, contact him at 925-681-2743, [email protected]