Unseemly Behavior: Stories

Unseemly Behavior is set in the Caribbean - not the scenic Caribbean of sun, sand and carefree living but a Caribbean beset with troubling realities born of a bloody history and nurtured by generational trauma.

In these tales, Stanford selects diverse strands of his society and paints them in their stark realism. A school teacher must confront a student who attempts to rape another; an adult survivor of childhood sex abuse faces her tormentor; overbearing parents drive their son to madness; young men take extreme action to deal with runaway crime on their island.

There are simmering racial tensions, crises of faith and betrayals on a grand and intimate scale. Yet here and there, like tropical sunlight filtering through a rotted roof, the human spirit triumphs.