Spare, but warm and quietly elegant, Fatted Calf Blues uses metaphor, simile, and imagery to leave a lasting impression on the reader. In “Forgiveness,” an encounter with a hawk on a beach causes a suicidal man to reflect on forgiveness versus the weight of the stones in his pockets. In “New Glasgow Kiss,” an ex-con flies across the ocean in the hope of reconciling with his estranged daughter. In “The Bridge by Moonlight,” a woman mourns her dead son and struggles to understand the depth of her daughter-in-law’s grief. Many of the stories in Fatted Calf Blues have appeared in literary journals including Front’N’Centre , the Windsor Review , The Dublin Quarterly , Filling Station , Pottersfield Portfolio and Grain Magazine.