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Abstract
Hall of Fame is a collection of nine short stories ranging in length from 3,500 words to 14,500 words. The stories include: Self Defense With Out Weapons, Raft on Open Water, Crossing the Rio Grande, Hall of Fame, Ropes, Walking the Till, Demon Wrestling, Comrades, and Circling Over Ithaca. The characters in general are rural as is the landscape. They are outsiders struggling to survive in the face of a world that is unreceptive to their dreams, goals and illusions. The struggle each character undertakes ultimately leads to a movement within each character that reflects a change from the characters original situation. The characters in general are rural as is the landscape. They are outsiders struggling to survive in the face of a world that is unreceptive to their dreams, goals and illusions. The landscape the stories generally take place in is the middle Atlantic region, part of the Appalachian Mountains that runs up and down the east Coast. Characterized by low rolling green mountains, they are hilly yet steep and rugged. They rise above flat farm fields and valleys. The characters of the stories inhabit this landscape. It is an area strung between the rural, agrarian farm life and the urban one that is slowly invading, forcing a change movement away from the old life. The characters are often at odds with change and they must cope with it. That is their struggle - dealing with the movement to a new lifestyle, or movement into adulthood and responsibility. It is a movement out of the self and into the greater world. The exception to the regional focus is Raft on Open Water, which occurs in the Caribbean, however, as the other stories its central character is also involved in a struggle, here it is against nature. Wrestling functions metaphorically in many of the stories as a representative of this struggle. Wrestling itself is a coping mechanism for many of the characters and as it becomes obsolete they must adapt themselves in order to survive, to learn to deal with the world in a different way.