Rehearsing for Oblivion: Three Stories for our Times

By Tony Compagno

Rehearsing for Oblivion consists of three stories inspired by real-life circumstances and situations experienced by the San Francisco-born author whose writings principally reflect his love and compassion for people at critical moments of their lives. He has written diligently through his entire adult life, working in a number of forms: fiction, newspaper features (mostly humorous) and poetry. He has penned a novel, two novelle, a collection of short stories, a book of poetry, and a collection of musings about the times and seasons of our lives. He lives to write, not vice versa, and the joy he finds in telling tales of people and situations that spark his interest is apparent in all his offerings.Rehearsing for Oblivion, a phrase borrowed from one of the verses in his Words, Like Lost Children, presents three stories: Discovery Day deals with a family in 1984 San Francisco. It is the early stages of what will become known as the AIDS epidemic. A young man comes to accept himself while watching his beloved grandmother become one of the first quite innocent casualties of the new and dreadful scourge. Bare Ruined Choirs, a phrase from one of Shakespeare's sonnets, deals with a family whose matriarch is afflicted with Alzheimer's; the situation is made more complicated for the lovely woman's son and daughter when a man from the widowed mother's past shows up at a Christmas party at Sunset Gardens, a convalescent facility. The Fifth Quarter deals with the subject of Art versus Life; six old friends and high-school basketball teammates and their coach gather at a San Francisco saloon to celebrate the anniversary of their legendary upset victory over a team from Sojourner Truth High, but the reunion turns into an unexpected crisis.These are three stories from the heart from a writer whom one literary critic described as "blessed with a terrific talent for conveying the interesting minutiae of daily life."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1973367882
• ISBN13: 9781973367888
• Release Date: December 2017
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 131 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.3" x 5.5"