Snuck Past Death And Sleep
Set as Cold War sneaks to its end, “Snuck Past Death And Sleep” tells the story of four loners who meet at an insular Midwestern college that they will waken and terrorize. Lynn and Craig are non-traditional students. She enters college later in life to break through lifelong isolation; while he entered as a year-early whiz-kid and has bogged down ever since. Paul and Edward are dorm mates, brought together as the only two applicants to request a gay room-mate: Paul as an impulsive first step to coming out; Edward because he has nothing to hide. They meet at the cozy philosophy club; uncomfortably welded together when Edward proposes a club-sponsored, multi-viewpoint debate on homosexuality and the Bible. Only these four emerge as courageous enough, or with little enough to lose, to spear-head the project. They defy organized conservative resistance, waken a deadly, forgotten campus scandal,--and their own ghosts-when a visit from Paul’s homophobic hometown best friend drives them to shocking vandalism on the eve of the debate. Pressures reach the bursting-point as they meet their worst enemy and their best friend alike, and the worst consequences of all their actions come home to roost.
at the Yellow Rose Gallery, madison, Wiscosin
About the Author
Benjamin Norman Pierce was born in Denver, Colorado at 4 degrees of Virgo, Scorpio Ascending, in 1962, moving to Wausau, Wisconsin on his 2nd birthday and leaving on his 23rd. He has been a professional dish-washer for 35 years, a trade he entered in the process of earning BA's in philosophy, history, and creative writing from the University of Minnesota, Saint Cloud, in 1989. He lived in Sophia, Bulgaria for two and a half years, teaching history at First English Language Gymnasium of Sophia, participating in the expatriate writing circles there, and taking time to learn painting. He has published poetry in a variety of literary and academic journals. He currently resides in Nottingham, a co-operatively owned house in Madison, Wisconsin, and is a frequent participant at open-mike readings, and often displays his art in small galleries and local coffee shops.
