Petites Suites — Robert Wexelblatt

-- R. S. Deese, author of Surf Music and We Are Amphibians

“Robert Wexelblatt's Petites Suites are sweets for the ear and food for the brain. The author's fertile imagination offers scenarios, sketches, and movements for the mind on every theme and subject under the sun, families, artists, presidents for life, almost lovers, fading lions and hungry cubs. While the themes are stated with a musical precision, developments come smartly and the resolutions are sure and often subtle. A banker who knows where the bucks are hidden prevents a war. A GPS becomes the voice of wisdom. Odysseus confronts a different sort of fidelity. Wexelblatt brings a poet's phrasing to his verbal music and a philosopher's depth to his understanding of people, places, art, politics, generational angst, shameful survivors, and necessary compromises. You'll tune in for a suite, but you'll stay for whole program and you won't want to miss a note.”

-- Robert Knox, author of Suosso's Lane and Gardeners Do It With Their Hands Dirty

The brilliant and inventive author invokes the structure of music in what is too lively to call a collection of stories. As I read, I kept remembering a favorite necklace made of antique beads: some glitter; some shine; some are inscribed with mysterious patterns; some are dark, all connected with invisible thread. Entering into the worlds of these stories is enchanting, invigorating, and often delightfully disorienting. Wexelblatt is a master of leading you down a familiar garden path to an altogether unexpected country. Read at random or from beginning to end. You will find yourself wanting one more story, just one more, and another and another.

-- Elizabeth Cunningham, author of The Maeve Chronicles and Murder at the Rummage Sale