Everyday Heroes

This title contains two complete short stories, which are connected. "Everyday Heroes" is a charming and dramatic story of an unlikely encounter between two people from different worlds, where small acts and a few spoken words change the course of lives. Told in alternating fashion between 15-year-old Junior, a bookworm growing up in South Side Chicago who recently lost his mother to drugs, and Margaret, an elderly white woman who finds herself lost and out of gas "in the wrong part of...
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This title contains two complete short stories, which are connected. "Everyday Heroes" is a charming and dramatic story of an unlikely encounter between two people from different worlds, where small acts and a few spoken words change the course of lives. Told in alternating fashion between 15-year-old Junior, a bookworm growing up in South Side Chicago who recently lost his mother to drugs, and Margaret, an elderly white woman who finds herself lost and out of gas "in the wrong part of town" on her way to her dying brother's bedside. This 6500-word short story is a collaboration where one author, Don Miskel, who himself was once a young black man growing up in Chicago, writes from the point of view of the teenager, and the other author, Pamela Murray, writes from the POV of the white senior citizen who finds herself out of her comfort zone. Both of these characters have a rich emotional presence and their voices are distinctly different and sincere. In this same book, is the short story "Close Call," authored solely by Don Miskel. The reader again meets up with Junior, a few months after the events of "Everyday Heroes." Though less than 3000 words, "Close Call" tells a powerful story of trying to overcome being stuck in the cycle of poverty, crime, and hopelessness. Near the end of the story, Junior meets Detective Brandywine. "Close Call" serves as a bridge story to the full-length novel "Brandywine - The Chicago Trilogy," written by Don Miskel and published separately by Amazon in ebook and paperback. In the Brandywine novel, featuring Detective Brandywine, Junior appears in the middle story, "Lamentation."