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Legends of Glory and Other Stories

Harry Mark Petrakis
March 2007

Cloth, 0-8093-2758-9,
$25.00
978-0-8093-2758-4
176 pages, 5" x 8"

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Legends of Glory and Other Stories contains a novella and eight short stories by award-winning author Harry Mark Petrakis. In his novella “Legends of Glory,” Petrakis deals with the traditions and emotions of a small Midwestern town caught in the whirlwind of the Iraq War. In a communal rite of mourning, each character embodies a different voice, a different perspective, in regard to patriotism and pacifism. Although the novella relates to the sacrifice of a young man, the grieving of parents, and the conflicts of a family, it explores human sorrow and anger unchanged from the time of the Trojan War.

Praise for Legends of Glory:

“Legends of Glory is a masterpiece, a commentary as well as a history of the present era.”
—Fr. Andrew M. Greeley, author of The Senator and the Priest and Irish Crystal: A Nuala Anne McGrail Novel

“We shout against the wind, spitting our spleen against this war and fall back exhausted and defeated. Harry Mark Petrakis, in the quiet eloquence of his Legends of Glory, not only nails the war but the American militarism that feeds it. He leaves us our humanity, and in these days of chaos, who writes us such music?”
—Edward Asner, actor and activist

“Legends of Glory is the experience of our time transmitted not by cable news but by a great artist who feels our pulse and hears the breaking of our hearts.”
—Eugene Kennedy, author of The Unhealed Wound: The Church and Human Sexuality

“This tale of generations at their warring song is both timely and timeless—as fresh as the news from Iraq and ancient as the sorrows of the Trojan War. Harry Mark Petrakis demonstrates once more his unmatched gift for melding the contemporary and old world—where glory turns to ash and yet endures.”
—Nicholas Delbanco, author of Spring and Fall

“I read Legends of Glory and found myself in tears. That Petrakis could get so much from so few pages is a tribute to his narrative power. The last paragraphs are close to sublimity.”
—Richard Stern, author of Almonds to Zhoof: Collected Stories

Offering a collection of new stories populated with characters who face dilemmas of sacrifice, love, fidelity, and mortality.

Legends of Glory and Other Stories contains a novella and eight short stories by award-winning author Harry Mark Petrakis. In a departure from his previous, highly regarded work, Petrakis offers a fresh new perspective in the novella, “Legends of Glory,” which Fr. Andrew Greeley has called a “masterpiece.” For the first time Petrakis deals with the traditions and emotions of a small Midwestern town caught in the whirlwind of the Iraq War. In a communal rite of mourning, each character embodies a different voice, a different perspective, in regard to patriotism and pacifism. Although the novella relates to the sacrifice of a young man, the grieving of parents, and the conflicts of a family, it explores human sorrow and anger unchanged from the time of the Trojan War.

In a return to his earlier lyrical prose style, Petrakis also treats us to eight beautifully crafted short stories. “Beauty’s Daughter” introduces a sullen-spirited Greek bakery owner and his lovely, more amiable wife.
“The Birthday” considers the fear that most people have of the emotional and physical decline that the years bring and the reconciliation with death.

In “The Wisdom of Solon,” Solon, who does not realize that life cannot be neatly categorized within the mysterious relationships between men and women, finds that every action sets in motion a series of often bewildering consequences.
The question of a proper marriage match and the struggle to make the right choice mark “The Rousing of Mathon Sarlas.” And the longing to believe that something survives our mortal bodies even if reason dictates otherwise is central to “A Dishwasher’s Tale.”

Completing the collection are “Christina’s Summer,” “Rites of Passage,” and “A Tale of Color,” which are also presented in an inviting prose style and individualized by engaging characters to provide readers with a cumulative sense of culture, geography, and sensibility.


Harry Mark Petrakis is the author of twenty-two books, including A Dream of Kings, which was made into a major motion picture. He has held appointments at Ohio University as McGuffy Visiting Lecturer and at San Francisco State University as Kazantzakis Professor in Modern Greek Studies. He was twice nominated for the National Book Award in Fiction, won the O. Henry Award, and received awards from Friends of American Writers, Friends of Literature, and the Society of Midland Authors.

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