Bix's Trumpet and Other Stories

Dave Margoshes explores uncharted territory of the human heart in this thoroughly engaging new collection of short stories. Like a small boy fascinated with bugs and frogs, Margoshes, a journeyman story-writer, holds his characters up to the light and lets them squirm. By and large, these people are content with their ordinary, somewhat humdrum lives, until they are shaken by unexpected stress:

A woman learns her likeable step-father was a secret pornographer; an overheard boast of infidelity sends a marriage and a life into freefall; a middle-aged musician, satisfied with his place in the orchestra's second violin section, begins to re-examine his life when he discovers a long-buried family secret; winning a contest tests a friendship in an unexpected way; a surprise visit tilts an budding love affair over the edge; a teenaged girl finally comes to terms with grief when she swims in a lake named for her father.

Bix's Trumpet and Other Stories offers surprising glimpses into people's lives, challenging us to observe the world, and life around us, a little closer.