Don Tassone – författare

Presenting 75 new short stories based on the author''s reflections, his musings, on real-life happenings. They show what pausing to reflect can reveal and invite a closer look at the passing parade of events through our daily lives.

Get Back is a collection of twelve short stories by Don Tassone. Though most have been published in different online journals before, this is his first collection of stories in print.  These stories share the theme of discovery or actually of rediscovery, rediscovery of talents, pursuits, and loves once held dear, but lost on the way to "success" in life.  Don's stories are uplifting and encouraging, encouraging in the sense that they suggest we all might find our ways back, that is, "get back," to the things we once loved, valued the most, and since have lost.

Tassone met with great success in his life, yet it was in retirement that he was able to "get back" to the things he loved, one of which was writing.   His stories are carefully conceived and delightfully expressed.  They are sure to please sensitive readers.

Nick Reynolds is a highly successful food company executive.  He’s also a bully, feared by his employees and estranged from his wife and children.  After his latest blow-up at work, Nick’s boss orders him to take the summer off and sort himself out.  Angry and despondent, Nick sets off, alone, from his home in Chicago for Bar Harbor, Maine.  

This is the story of what Nick experiences, learns and chooses along the way.  It is a colorful and moving portrait of a man who must rediscover who he is and decide whether he can go on.

In Small Bites, Don Tassone offers readers bits of contemporary life, mostly gentle, mostly optimistic, often instructive. Stories range from flash-fiction size half-pagers to twenty-page studies of how relationships develop, how decisions are made and unmade, how persuasion and collaboration work.

The collection is divided into fourteen tiny Appetizers, twelve substantial Entrees, and fourteen small but intense Desserts. Appetizers like "Friends" and "Run" are quick and easy to consume; they're secular parables, meant to produce a small, "got it!" sense of surprise as readers fill in what's implied but not directly stated. Entrees range more widely, sometimes questioning current forms of connectivity, sometimes underscoring a sense that humans need to trust and to engage with one another. "The Discord in Our Souls," for example, leaves readers puzzling over which of several bad options is least bad. "Beauty Mark" traces a model's reaction to the accident which defaces her. "Everything Is Real" includes a ghost. Most stories in the final set, the Desserts, focus on beginnings and endings--on little acts of courage, sweet though painful memories, manageable ironies.

In Small Bites, Don Tassone combines insights gained during a successful thirty-year career in corporate public relations with those which come from growing up in a middle class American family, becoming a parent, watching people grow. He's the author of the novel, Drive, and another collection of stories titled Get Back. He currently teaches courses at Xavier University, writes, and enjoys cooking up stories like these.