THERE IS PROOF OF GOD – a new short story by Michael Fine

Greetings,

There is Proof of God is a story about three men who meet by accident one afternoon in rural New Jersey, a meeting with fatal consequences. It’s set in Branchville New Jersey at Thunder Mountain Ranch, where I went to summer camp and where I learned to ride and rope. And shoot. (Now there’s something I bet you didn’t know about me. I can ride, rope and shoot, or at least I once could. And learned how way back in the New Jersey woods.)

There is Proof of God has been up on the website for about 18 months, but we never sent it out because I thought it was too dark, which is the last thing we all need, in this dark time.

But two weeks ago, events like those described in There is Proof of God actually occurred in Dover, New Jersey, a town just a few miles from Branchville, creating another strange life imitates art, truth is stranger than fiction moment, another strange overlap of fiction and fact.

Some people may take There is Proof of God to be a partisan political statement, but it’s not one, not even a little. Remember the characters are just characters, and represent only themselves. The mess we are in comes out of exactly our inability to see things as they are, each with its own truth, without political or even social meaning, and comes out of our inability to listen and to see one another for who we are, as humans, each with our own truth and our own complexity. That mess is made worse by our inability to tell fact from fiction, and our inability to imagine a common life.

There is Proof of God is a long story, 32 pages long. Read it on a summer afternoon on a porch or at the beach and then drop me a line. Tell me what you think, and if you think there was some other way out for these three men once you’ve gotten to know them.

As you likely know from all these emails, I’ve got two new books available. Abundance, my new novel, was released May 2, at a pretty good party that brought many of Rhode Island’s communities together. Abundance is set in Liberia and Rhode Island in 2003 to 2007, at the end of the Liberian Civil Wars. It’s about war, learning to love, and what it will take for us to be one people again. It’s available directly from the publisher, click here, or on Amazon, at most bookstores in Rhode Island and through many bookstores around the country. I’ll be traveling widely over the next few months, doing lots of bookstore and library readings, book signings, and lectures.

Health Care Revolt came out in September. It has given me the opportunity to travel all over the US and to talk about health care and democracy – ideas that are very important to me indeed.

I’m happy to talk or read at your local library, church, synagogue, mosque, Rotary Club, school, bookstore, community center, university, residency program or hospital. Just drop me a line atmichaelfinemd@gmail.com and we’ll set something up.

There are now sixteen stories available for purchase. You can buy any or all of the stories now by clicking here, for a small donation to the Health Care Revolt project of the the George Wiley Center, Rhode Island’s premier community organizing group.

Thanks for reading. And for taking the time to hope and imagine.

There is still no other life and certainly no better life.

Thanks,

Michael

PS. We’ve created a way to send a story invitation to friends and colleagues. This story is free for them as well. Click here to send an invitation. If you like one of these stories, please send it to five or ten friends. I get an extra charge out of hearing from people I don’t know who read these stories, so please send them to anyone and everyone you think might be interested.