The Royal Ghosts: Stories

The well-written stories in this book are about the difficulty of understanding emotions brought up by complications in relationships with family, friends, and lovers. The protagonists go about their ordinary lives, trying to make sense of the people around them as well as of what is going on inside their own minds: a mother dealing with a schizophrenic son and a husband who left her, a father and the daughter who refuses to obey him despite the affection they share for each other, a political activist who is aware that his actions cause unintended harm. They are well-meaning people who find either themselves or their friends and family acting wayward - behaving in a way that causes pain to both themselves and those around them. They live day to day with motivations and feelings that are difficult to understand and only partly conscious. How they come to a resolution (or live without such a resolution) of the conflicts inside them reveals very human virtues of forgiveness and affection and very human frailties of stubbornness and hypocrisy. The stories' protagonists live in a changing society, and must seek their answers in themselves. That most of them manage to make a decent life in difficult circumstances shows the author's faith in human nature. Still, the pervasive atmosphere is of troubled times.