"There is an image-rich, descriptive quality to Robin's prose.  Her writer's voice is searching and deep. The stories pierced me. The emotional images will remain with me."
                                                                                                                                       - Joan Paylo, PEN Central.
LITERARY
NON-FICTION
My friends had colorful childhoods with Jewish siblings, flamboyant Italian parents, quirky Irish, demanding German, abusive, over-indulgent, crazy, transsexual... Interesting anyway. Great raw material for plays and stories. Me - I'm white bread from New England. Gurney territory. Polite. Solidly middle-class. Safe. Repressed. Bor-ring! Well, not really. Not once I started digging. The following stories are 99% true --

CHOICE OF PASTRY. As a freshman at Antioch College, my first co-op job was waitressing in a ritzy German restaurant in Cambridge, MA. The experience was definitely memorable. (1960)

THE NEW FRONTIER. Ideals, JFK, loss of virinity, marriage, and Peace Corps training combine to create a summer like none other. (1962)

THE LITTLE STORE. One snowy Christmas season, a story of mistrust and love develops in a store stocked with comics and candy. (1950).

THE DAY I LEARNED A REALLY DIRTY WORD. While babysitting for the  Williams College chaplin, William Sloane Coffin, I experience the seduction of words as well as terror. (1954)


 


THE STORIES ARE CURRENTLY FORMING THE CORE OF HIDE/SEEK - A NEW, FULL-LENGTH PLAY FOR ONE ACTOR.
They are no longer available as separate short stories.

AND A POEM - This was written when my Dad died. He was such a huge influence on my life, it seems right that he should have a presence on these pages.

Pretending with Dad

I pretend to like threading the worm,
Gripping the fish
Jig-jagging the hook from its bloody lip.
"A beauty," you say -
"But small; throw it back."

I pretend to like boxing too,
Archie Moore
Light heavyweight champ and you and me
Locked in combat
In a 10-inch world.

You call me "Number 1,"
Which I pretend is annoying
'Cause that's my job.
I pretend you're tough as nails
'Cause that's your job.

These things we don't speak
Like thunder
Rush through us, deeper than North Pond
Older than October
Taller than Greylock.
                                
                                           RRL 10/2/04