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Available for Publication:
The Academy
By William Fowkes
"It's all in the faculty. We're a close-knit family here."
Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Edward Albee
The faculty of Humbert College in Olmstead, New York, disagree about many things, including whether the school's postcard-perfect campus is the ideal setting in which to enjoy one's membership in the academy or a fishbowl whose inhabitants dream of one day moving onto something better. The central story of The Academy concerns Ned Jenkins, a peripatetic junior philosophy professor hoping finally to settle into a tenured position. In the course of his bitter tenure struggle in a divided philosophy department, he has to cope with ambivalent feelings toward the woman in his life, the scrutiny and neediness of fellow faculty members, and unpleasant dealings with departmental and romantic rivals, all the while trying to come to terms with his relationship with his father and the real motivation driving his career.
(72,000 words, 291 manuscript pages)
Note: The Academy is also the basis of my new full-length play, All in the Faculty, soon to be available for consideration.
The Nonbeliever
By William Fowkes
"I have found God, but he is insufficient."
Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
"If that's all there is, my friend, then let's keep dancing."
Peggy Lee
Tommy Hilton is on a spiritual quest. As a young man, no one in the Hilton household is more committed to St. Thomas's, the family's Episcopal church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. But when he goes off to Columbia University in the late 1960s and comes to terms with being gay, he slips into agnosticism. In the coming years, he finds solace and disillusionment in a variety of religious experiences, including evangelical Christianity and eastern mysticism, as well as in his personal relationships. In the end, he questions whether he has made any progress, human or metaphysical, at all.
(80,000 words, 274 manuscript pages)
Note: The Nonbeliever is also the basis of my new full-length play, The Seeker, a work in progress. My published short story, Power to the Pulpit, is based on an excerpt from this novel.
A Father’s Place
By William Fowkes
"The truth is always embarrassing."
Arthur Miller, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
Bronxville, New York is a handsome and affluent suburban community in Westchester County, a throwback to a simpler, more homogeneous time whose memory fuels the collective imagination and expectations of its inhabitants. Among the handsome and accomplished men in this community, however, some lead double lives. A Father's Place tells the story of three closeted gay fathers whose lives take dramatic turns when the truth about each of them comes out.
(85,000 words, 307 manuscript pages)
Note: My full-length play, Marriages of Inconvenience, is based on a portion of A Father’s Place. My published short stories, A Proper Bed and Park Avenue, are also based on excerpts from this novel.
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