Cagey and 2 Others

Publication date: December 12, 2010. “I guess you sorta guessed I ain’t graduated High School yet,” says Peter, the protagonist of Robert Peate’s Cagey. “I ain’t, it’s true, but I’m sixteen and I can prove it. I got a scar on my back. I put it there on my sixteenth birthday. Even Mary ain’t seen it. I’m cagey like that. You ain’t seen it, it ain’t happened. You know?” Such logic, rather illogic, is at the heart of Robert Peate’s Cagey, a novella about a boy confined to a mental institution for setting a teacher’s house alight. Is he an unrepentant arsonist who admires Jack the Ripper, or merely a boy acting out for attention? Is his society responding to his needs, or merely to his symptoms? Causes or effects? These questions and more are raised by this story, which takes place in 1985 Syracuse, New York. “Chasing Kerouac” continues the theme of insanity, depicting one man’s obsession with finding a lost piece of writing by author Jack Kerouac, an obsession that takes him hundreds of miles with a friend to visit complete strangers. “Neighbors” tops it off with another man’s less constructive obsession with what goes on behind a neighbor’s closed doors. In each of these tales, the mind and its workings (or failings) are explored with good humor and perceptive insights on the human condition. Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Holly Figueroa O’Reilly calls the three stories in this collection “fantastic”, adding: "They are delightful in places and terrifying in others. And they will put you into the worlds of the characters instantly. You won't want to put this book down until you have read all three."