The first collection of the short stories of Harry Mark Petrakis was nominated for a National book Award in Fiction, establishing him as a master of the form. Revealing commentaries by the author introduce each story in this collection. In "The Passing of the Ice, " Polish icemen suffer the fate of some great doomed Greek line. In "The Song of Rhodanthe" a fleeting vision of love flowers within a grim social prison. In "The journal of a Wife Beater" an insufferable chauvinist male discovers to his horror and bodily peril, that is wife is younger and stronger than he is.

From the ageless elements of great drama-love and hate, fear and home, war and vengeance, Petrakis has spun a modern classic. "IN THE LAND OF MORNING" centers around two love affairs, one youthful and poetic, the other a seething, sensual mature love that grows to be all-consuming. It is the story, as well, of a strange, driven family seen in a new light by a son newly returned from war, weary of killing and death, but finding he has not left these behind him. Confrontation and the haunted past threaten his love and his hope for the future.

A finalist for the National Book Award in its original edition, this classic American novel from acclaimed Chicago storyteller Harry Mark Petrakis is being brought back into print in conjunction with the publication of Petrakis's latest memoir, Song of My Life. At the heart of A Dream of Kings is Leonidas Matsoukas, operator of the Pindar Counseling Service ("Solutions provided for all problems of life and love"), proponent of wildly creative get-rich-quick schemes, passionately loving husband and father, equally ardent lover of the beautiful bakeshop proprietor Anthoula, incurable gambler,...