Waiting for the fireworks

the long version

Meet Norman Sage - an eloquent, witty, eighty-something-year-old man who writes passionate stories about life, love, loss, and community in rural America. One of a handful of octogenarians writing truly exceptional short fiction, Sage balances gracefully between intimacy and distance as he evokes the loneliness, fear of death, and sexual yearnings that face a man nearing the end of his life. In these fourteen works of fiction, Sage is driven to reflect on the joys and defeats of romantic love in all its myriad incarnations - loves of childhood and youth, love of a wife long dead, love of other women real and imagined, love of women met too late in life. He is painfully honest in acknowledging his longing for love and for companionship and in assessing the likelihood of his finding either. With a mixture of humor and regret, he depicts the bittersweet almost-romances of his later years. Together his reflections portray a spectrum of worthy female characters as well as a progression of male characters who live in the company of such astonishing, intelligent, valiant women.