Impossible Encounters

Book excerpt: A nuanced mix of the ordinary with the surreal, the mundane with the sublime, this mosaic novel quietly twists trusted concepts. With simple yet fine prose, this story unfolds as a series of otherworldly meetings. After death, a man encounters not a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel, but a hall of portraits and, locked in a room, the most extraordinary artwork of all. Other colorful characters include a young man who finds himself atop a mountain, a bookseller that services the most ordinary of requests from a highly unusual patron, a banker who meets his maker on a train, a priest who receives absolution from the devil, and a dying author who finds hope in the most unlikely of conversations. Long before the last page, readers may find the world has been turned inside out.