Bald Spots & Blue Suits: Modern Fables

In his debut collection of short stories, Bald Spots & Blue Suits: Modern Fables, Henry Henkel leads his characters through a labyrinth of transformation where ordinary events have extraordinary repercussions. An unexpected romance interrupts the dreary routine of an embittered middle-aged traveling salesman; a mysterious windfall from a penitent sinner enables a blind priest to realize the parish of his dreams; a successful prospector struggles to free himself from the fetters of his riches. Each of the characters in these ten stories searches desperately for an escape from Thoreau’s life of “quiet desperation;” those fortunate enough to find the exit must then wrestle with the unexpected consequences. Using the framework of the fable, Henkel explores man’s struggle with alienation and loneliness, his search for truth and love in an illusory world. He draws on Hawthorne’s themes of salvation and redemption to upend our perceptions of good and evil, freedom and bondage.

Henry Henkel was born in 1955 and grew up in Seaford, New York, a small town on the South Shore of Long Island. After a life in the suburban public school system, Henry graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo where he began to write short stories. Henry has a Master's Degree in Literature from New York University and spent three years as chairman of the English department at a New York private school. He currently works in the financial services industry. Henry lives with his wife and four children in Princeton Junction, New Jersey. He is at work on his second collection of short stories, Of Cypress and Sunflowers.