Geoffrey Craig: Author of ONE-EYED MAN AND OTHER STORIES
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- Published: Sunday, 10 June 2018 15:45
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Geoffrey Craig, author of One-Eyed Man and Other Stories, (forthcoming in July, 2018) knows a lot about a lot. Armed with a Colgate BA and Harvard MBA, he joined the Peace Corps in the late 1960s and spent two years in Peru. "I had come from a relatively privileged background, and this was an eye-opener,” he says, "both educationally and personally." He traveled quite a bit in Latin America, and began to develop an understanding of global problems. He learned Spanish, which he still speaks fluently.
Peace Corps was the introduction, he says. "It allowed me to continue working and being involved with Latin America for a good part of my career. In all kinds of ways it was transformative." After he returned, Craig worked with small business development in California, snagged an MA in History, spent a year trekking around Europe, and then settled into a long and honorable career in international banking. He retired with the title of director from Credit Suisse First Boston in 2002, and turned serious about his new "hobby" of writing. Deeply committed to the idea of equality, he explores "tough people fighting their way through injustices in the world." Lately, he's been scripting and directing plays. These experiences--gathered with one eye on crucial details, and the other on the larger picture--make Geoffrey Craig an ideal observer of the worlds he presents in One-Eyed Man and Other Stories.
The collection is organized into five sections, each with from one to six stories focused on a particular place/time. Blue Heron Lake stories follow a community of Latino workers who eventually attempt to make their town a sanctuary city. The Brandon Forsythe stories feature a talented African American man wrongfully imprisoned. Unemployable as an ex-con, he becomes a successful drug lord. The Carmichael stories feature two generations of Swedes in upstate New York, facing--or avoiding--the challenges which industrialization and automation create. The Snake stories, set in 1920s South Carolina, provide disturbing, unforgettable images of Jim Crow at work. And the stand-alone story, Morocco, we believe, will convince readers that travel can help heal the deepest of wounds.