Local author and Royal Palm Beach High School social science teacher J.P. Linstroth recently published his fifth book, which won the International Proverse Publication Prize.
Swimming in Blue Shadows: A Collection of Short Stories and Poems (Proverse Publisher 2022) is a collection of five short stories and 10 poems on diverse subjects and styles, written over a number of years. Each story grew out of the author’s personal experiences and represents a different phase of his life.
The subjects of the short stories are: a wild boar hunt, a failed relationship, a Nahuatl flower seller, a bullfight and a Belizean archaeology expedition.
The poems also grew from personal experiences or center on themes of particular interest to the author, such as artificial intelligence, Afghanistan, COVID-19, Native Americans, love, depression, death, loss and youthful exuberance.
The title of the collection, a phrase from the first story in it, suggests the nearness of death in its innumerable and nebulous guises, pinpointing especially how the various protagonists face death, as if swimming in death’s blue shadows, hidden yet there.
“The stories and poems of Swimming in Blue Shadows take their themes from many of the issues preoccupying reflective people, especially those struggling to define a credible personal philosophy; fear, love, loss, depression, loneliness, the unknown, the future, death,” award-winning author Philip Chatting said. “Throughout the collection, however, and particularly in the stories and somewhat against the odds, we hear underlying hints of an optimism-sustaining faith that eventually all will be well, despite what is evident at first glance.”
