Showing results for "Mark Owen" in Literary Fiction

After the sudden loss of his wife, Michael Turner moves to London and develops a close friendship with the Nelson family next door. Josh, Samantha and their two young daughters seem to represent everything Michael fears he may now never have. Despite this, the new friendship at first seems to offer the prospect of healing, but then a catastrophic event changes everything. Michael is left bearing the burden of a secret he must keep, but the truth can be kept at bay for only so long.

Chosen for inclusion in William Evans Burton's Cyclopediae of Wit and Humor of 1857, The Lightning-Rod Man was the one Melville tale to be available throughout his lifetime, thanks to reissues of this volume. More a parable than a character-driven story, the Lightning-Rod man is a charlatan who tries to profit by selling fearful people lightning-rods during thunderstorms. The narrator has a difficult encounter with the Lightning-Rod man in this story about overcoming fear and superstition.