Roamers and Wanderers

Roamers and Wanderers is a collection of short stories and some poetry set in different countries or cities and written over a period of about forty years. Each is about travel and the effect the trip has on the traveler. Characters may react in negative or positive ways. In one case, memories surface, resulting in emotional turmoil. Primarily in the poems, political issues are visited.


In the first short story, “Markers,” a newly married woman confronts the controlling behavior exhibited by her husband.


The poem “Take Off” reveals the universal fear of flying. In the poem “Nobody Knows,” a woman reflects on how she appears to others–looking crazy?–in the airport as she walks back and forth looking for the ground transportation sign.


In “Remembering Caracas,” the narrator, waiting in a Rhode Island train station, notices a provocative sentence built into the tile floor: “I travel not to get someplace but travel for travel’s sake.” This exemplifies all the stories in this collection.


“Getting to Verdun” veers a bit to the crazy side of life, with a woman, her husband, and her father intent on granting the father’s wish to reach Verdun, so he can retrace his steps made in World War I. The daughter has unresolved issues with her father and acts up.


In “Norway,” the illusory attention from a colleague of her husband within an atmosphere of possible radiation exposure, and in totally unfamiliar surroundings, distracts a woman from confronting her fear for an imagined unborn child.


The universality of travel continues with the short story “On a Bench in the Amtrak Station,” which follows a woman intently watching a mother and baby interact. She talks to herself about it, revealing how envious she is of their relationship.


“The Guide and the Boy,” written in the style of magic realism, deals with a tour guide trying to keep his tourists interested in the myths of Mexico. Among the tourists is a teenage boy who finds the guide boring and thus harasses him until the guide “loses it” and becomes violent.


In “Ulrika,” an arrogant womanizer drives through the Alps off-handedly looking for a woman he vaguely remembers. He finds her, objectifies her, and she reacts in a self-destructive manner.