- Richard Shain Cohen
Contact: Email | Website
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About the Author
Richard Shain Cohen, Cape Elizabeth, Maine, is originally from Boston. He retired from the University of Maine, Presque Isle after serving as the Vice President of Academic Affairs and Professor of English. His publications include Petal on A Black Bough, chapters in AROOSTOOK:LAND OF PROMISE, reviews and articles and a monograph on Samuel Richardson which can be found in major library holdings. He was also editor of the journal, Husson Review and principal participant in a National Endowment for the Arts Grant for “Images of Aroostook." He is currently working on his father's memoirs. - Books
- Be Still, My Soul
FICTION | HISTORICAL (WORLD WAR II / FAMILY SAGA)
Be Still, My Soul depicts a family struggling to survive the ordeals of war and home-front tragedies. This new novel, by Richard Shain Cohen, is a family epic that follows Jocelyn and Aaron as their family faces the turmoil of the late 1930s and the impending war.Jocelyn, a Catholic and a renowned singer, is married to a Jewish, immigrant physician, Aaron. With conflicting careers, religious beliefs, and social status, they struggle throughout their marriage. The strain intensifies when their four sons are sent to battle during World War II.
Adding to Jocelyn's worries is her brother, Joseph, who has become an agent for the British. He works as a spy in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, eventually marrying a German double agent, Elena. Elena comes to America to live, but, mistakenly believes her husband died in battle and returns to occupied France. Jocelyn, meanwhile, seeks a semblance of stability while trying to reconcile differences with Aaron and also with her difficult daughter-in-law, Lou Ann.
These home problems occur as her sons' letters arrive describing their trials on the battlefields. What the letters do not reveal is the sons' knowledge that their uncle, Joseph, committed a revenge murder. The question is whether Jocelyn's strength is enough to carry the family through such tragic events, or whether she will succumb to the intensity of her own pain.
$16.95 | Paperback ISBN: 1414037317 | Hardcover ISBN: 1414037309
EXCERPT | DETAILS | PURCHASE: Email or call 207-767-1895
- Monday: End of the Week
FICTION | ROMANCE / RELATIONSHIPS
Monday, day of deception, conspiracy, cowardice, self-indulgence; day of kindness, love, courage during early and mid twentieth century anti-lesbianism, glass-ceiling norms.Marion deserts her fiancé, Warren, and elopes to France with the artist Giselle. Returning to Warren, she meets Jocelyn, a celebrated singer, and the wife of Aaron Lobel, a physician. Aaron has established a clinic for the poor, anathema to the Massachusetts Medical Society of that day. He courageously combats his opposition while his wife resolutely continues with her career. Marion becomes a college professor. The Lobel son Jeremie comes to teach at the college. He and Marion become links for the contrast between the Lobel and Worfield families. The deceitful college president, Edmond Worfield, and his wife, Lisa, desire an exemplary family, as their frustrated and disappointing sons, Nelson and Conrad, compete over the Worfield's ward, Frances, they prevent the Worfields' wished for fulfillment. Within this turmoil, Marion succeeds and Jeremie learns the secret of his parents' turbulent relationship.
End of the Week shows that courage, endurance, and love triumph over cowardice, conspiracy, and degeneracy, that these intertwined persons sustain or destroy themselves by self-indulgence or commitment to social benefit.
$16.95 | ISBN: 0595125808
PURCHASE: Email or call 207-767-1895
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