Short stories published in 1981

Listing 34 stories.

A young man reunites with his father, and they share a meal and a movie. Years later, he reflects on the memory as he struggles to reconcile his complex emotions about fatherhood.

A family begins a new life in a college town where the father will coach the college's JV football team.

On a ship heading for America, a young Jewish girl, having spent her childhood during World War II, is determined to have her first kiss before she reaches the other side of the Atlantic.

When a dog discovers a dead child in a trash can, his owner seeks help from a local family man.

A young boy born into slavery meets a newly purchased slave from Africa who refuses to let go of his culture, despite the master's attempts to christianize him.

Guided by his late grandfather's wisdom, a young man in 1970s America must continuously attempt to stand up against a colleague's violence and console the man's distressed girlfriend, even when she is tragically hospitalized.

A middle-aged man and his younger brother, an Elvis impersonator, find themselves at the other end of a cultural shift taking over their world at a dizzying rate.

When a musician is faced with harsh criticism from a revered teacher, the life he had always planned goes up in flames.

A devoted mother wants to protect her children's innocence, but this changes when her son gravely injures her only daughter.

A string quartet practices Mozart’s K. 590 in the common room of their apartment as the complex manager struggles to recover the fading beauty of the property from the indifferent forces of destruction.