A Kind of Kaddish

Dick Swiveller, the wittily named park ranger who is by turns both ill-tempered and kind, Winston 'Franzia' Weatherby, the only wino Swiveller knows who really drinks wine, One-eyed Rita. . . Fern. . . One-Beer Bob. . . these are just some of the memorable characters who inhabit Jerry Wilson's stories. Drawing heavily on personal experience and with keen eyed observation of the human condition, Wilson writes about broken lives, the dispossessed, those who are unwanted, who go unnoticed, and yet somehow manage to survive. This is an America that will be immediately familiar to anyone who has seen the photographs of Dorothea Lange or read Charles Bukowski, John Steinbeck and other chroniclers of the underbelly of America-only the years have moved on. There is anger in these tales. . . humanity, love, humor and compassion too; but what makes them really special is the maturity in Jerry Wilson's writing that marks him as a new and necessary voice in American fiction.ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED UNDER THE TITLE YOU DON'T LIVE HERE, THIS NEW EDITION INCLUDES THREE ADDITIONAL STORIES AND AN INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHORJerry Wilson was born in 1961 in Boise, Idaho. He dropped out of high school at age 17 and joined the Air Force. He was discharged a sergeant four years later. Wilson has a B.A. degree in Psychology and has worked as a dishwasher, cook, concrete finisher, jackhammer operator, orderly in a psychiatric hospital, scrud in a wastewater treatment plant, janitor, truck driver, grocery checker, day laborer, fine jewelry salesman, casual postal carrier and as a park ranger for the Boise parks department. He has two daughters, Amanda and Declynn, and a grandson Max.