Sons of Noah and Other Stories

Cady's ( The Burning and Other Stories ) latest collection of stories reveals the influences of magical realism and horror. Cady uncovers the scars on our collective psyche that range from the Great Flood to the war in Vietnam. In the title story, members of a secluded pious community lives in close harmony with primordial forces. When their seclusion is interrupted by a rich, would-be developer, the land reacts with an eruption of Old Testament violence that signals a breach in God's Noahide covenant never again to destroy the world by flood. In another harrowing tale, Cady explores the relationship between war and madness. Although he claims to be addressing no war in particular, his references to jungle fighting and Asian faces leave little doubt that he finds the Vietnam conflict a paradigm for the horrors of war. Also included here are an account of resurrection as a gradual and oddly undramatic event and a tale about a man's return to a beloved childhood candy store whose proprietress is more ancient than is humanly possible. These are powerfully told stories by a writer whose words reverberate with human insight. (Nov.)