cover image The Alexandrine Scripts: A Stretch of Sand and Other Stories

The Alexandrine Scripts: A Stretch of Sand and Other Stories

. Wolfhound Press (IE), $15.95 (167pp) ISBN 978-0-86327-177-9

An erudite tale-spinner displays his skill in these five renderings of characters from ancient cultures. In ``Sacred Geese of Juno'' Camillus evolves from a fourth-century street barbarian to educated man, despite having earned, though not deserved, the sobriquet ``Goose.'' In ``The Traitors'' Apollonius, a Greek, loses his friend Simon in a rout of the Jews in the Roman province of Caesarea. The story ``Life of Hannibal,'' wherein his biographer, Callisthenes the Saguntine, maintains that ``nothing he did throughout his long and vicissitudinous life was prompted by hatred,'' illustrates the author's self-confessed preoccupation with Roman history, and his ability to blend fact with fiction to illuminate perennial and universal themes. Ray, American born, lives in Ireland. (Dec.)