These stories by my father, Frank Lance, were written in the late 1940"s and early "50s. They have been in storage since then. He died at age thirty three, from complications due to diabetes, without ever having published them. Many, but not all, the stories are humorous. Some are eerie and a couple make the reader wonder if the endings somehow are missing. We will never know. We (myself and my two teenaged children, Frank Lance Jr. and Zoe Lance) word processed them from a fading typewritten manuscript. We were faithful to the original manuscript, simply proofreading as we went along.
My father started up many small poetry magazines in Chicago, none of which are extant today. He was part of the burgeoning beatnik coffee-house culture that was springing up in big cities in the country at that time.
I am happy to have rescued these stories from oblivion, not only because the author is my father, but also because they are very good stories.
"What is most moving to me about this project is its marking, through publication delayed by half a century, a son"s brave attempt to recapture lost time by giving voice to an essential connection that was short-circuited almost a lifetime ago."
~ Arnold Aprill • Principal Investigator, Radical Compliance Arts and Learning Laboratory
The second half of the book is a collection of my own short stories.
"After just finishing the second half of "Stories My Father Never Told Me", I can categorically recommend this collection of uproariously hilarious tales of life in suburban Chicago. It is without parallel or intersection. I laughed until my breakfast snagged in my molars and milk volcanically exited my nose.
~ Jack Archibald • Author "The Skeeterdaddle Blues" and "The Skeeterdaddle Diaries" You can have your Shakespeare, Milton, James Joyce et al. For my money it"s Lawrence Lance right on down the line. ~ John Sheets • Head Librarian, Seattle Public Library Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Funny Stories My Father Never Told Me (Frank Lance)