richard lloyd spanier

Four stories deal with Errol Stein's idiosyncratic musings on mortality, love and the outrageous demand of an ancient Mayan god, From Philadelphia to Tucson to the coast of the Yucatan Errol is tested and gets by, not always getting it right, but always changed by his experiences. In Interloper, Errol survives a near fatal tractor accident on Camp America and transforms a phantom being as it journeys from one life form to another. Descending Gods finds the Stein family on the Yucatan coast where Ah Mucen Cab demands the sacrifice of Errol's son in an encounter fueled by a psychedelic rum drink. Javelina Stew recalls his arrival in Tucson and attempt to rescue a drowning ferocious animal from a swimming pool in a blinding Sonoran desert monsoon. Stein's musings on mortality, the meaning of a blues legend and poet collaborator's cryptic verses are examined in In the Days Before Rock and Roll. In stories ranging over a forty year partnership with his beloved Wanda we see Errol struggling to make sense of a life's lessons and ultimately getting it right.