Stories on class and conformity in the South. In Roll Call, a Southern gentleman works hard to maintain gentlemanly appearances, Place is on a poor woman's disillusion with her rich boyfriend, while the title story is on a snobbish widow and her house repairman.
William Hoffman is a master storyteller, and Follow Me Home reveals him at his inimitable best. In these eleven brilliantly observed, superbly crafted stories, he explores one of the most secret places of the human heart—the corner where we keep hidden the small and precious supply of whatever it is that lets us persist, and sometimes even triumph, in the face of life’s inescapable diminishments and losses. In Hoffman’s characters, the content of this inner reservoir varies greatly. For the hill farmer in “Abide with Me,” it is a form of direct grace granted to him in a near-death vision. For the disabled veteran in “Night Sport,” it is a bitter concoction of disillusionment and raw truth carried home from a distant war. For the quietly retired minister in “Sweet Armageddon,” unexpectedly given a glimpse of the life he long ago forsook, it is a prayerful wish for annihilation. On a less apocalyptic scale, in the haunting “Points,” a once-great horseman finds sustenance in a remembered world of elegance and courage—a world that, like his skills, is rapidly fading. In “Dancer,” a bereft and lonely woman retreats into the music of her youth, birds becoming quarter notes that fill the sky. In “Expiation,” a self-made executive after many years comes to terms with his own childhood, even though it means ending the lie on which his marriage is built. And in “Coals,” a maid and cook calls on her own reserves of spirit to bring her employer a renewal of life. Set in the small towns, cities, hills, and seascapes of Virginia—territory Hoffman knows as well as any writer ever has—the stories of Follow Me Home reveal to us men and women we know and care about, for in their struggles, win or lose, we recognize ourselves.
William Hoffman alternates enduing themes of land and sea by taking inhabitants mostly of Virginia’s inland and Chesapeake Bay regions and making them thoroughly his own in this superb collection of stories. The stories deal with the clash between old and new values, with ties to the land and the lure of the sea, with the struggle to maintain relationships–between parents and children, husbands and wives, community and individual. In “Fathers and Daughters,” a man fears that his pretty teenage daughter is throwing away her life by taking up with a handsome young man whose values are primitive and rapacious. In “Landfall,” an ailing, elderly couple makes a last trip. In their beloved sailboat, which has been like a vessel holding their marriage, the two cruise the New England coast to Canada, where the end of their journey is not what either foresaw. The protagonist of “Cuttings” is a bold, decorated veteran of Vietnam who has become softened by living in a metropolitan southern city. He is forced to show his bravery by facing a white oak that has died and needs felling to protect his beach cottage. In “Smoke,” a former convict, sickly and cynical, comes in poverty to live with his sister and her family, and by his courage restores the idea of honor in those whom he has caused to feel shame and anger. “Lover” is the haunting story of an aging businessman who seeks desperately to regain love and his youth through a relationship with an adolescent girl. An intellectually sophisticated minister, in “The Question of Rain,” is asked by member of his congregation to offer a special prayer day for rain when a drought scorches the countryside. He is reluctant to perform the service, to be tapped in the position of publicly asking for rain and putting himself and his God to the test. In “Patriot, a coal miner’s love of country makes him a true patriot, though the war he fights is not against a foreign enemy but against new, potentially destructive values. Hoffman’s skill as a craftsman is matched by the veracity of his eye and ear for poignant detail in these quietly powerful and always deeply moving stories.
Three friends who have gone their separate ways over the years gather for a weekend of hunting and conviviality, but on the first morning out, an invited fourth member of the group is shot and killed.
The black sheep of a prosperous Virginia family, Charles LeBlanc must elude the law while he investigates a mass murder at his family's annual reunion, during which he turns up the unsavory secrets kept by his kin. 25,000 first printing.
WILLIAM "BILL" HOFFMAN, M.Ed. is a retired CPA, Baltimore City School English & Special Education Teacher, Businessman, a "lover of life!" His Novel is written about a young man who comes of age in turbulent times! Which may bring home to the reader the many pitfalls that await anyone trying to pull themselves "up" by their own bootstraps.
A private investigator reveals how he amassed enough evidence to force the Arizona state supreme court to reverse the state's verdict against two innocent men wrongly convicted of murdering investigative reporter Don Bolles
Declared the "best novel of the year" by the Cleveland Press when first published in 1966, Yancey's War is the story of ordinary men in an extraordinary off-the-main-track war. Marvin Yancey -- short, fat, over forty, sloppy, sycophantic, cowardly -- is the most unlikely recruit at a Virginia training camp during World War II. He is called a bootlicker and a toady to the army system, which he is, and all the men in his platoon find him disgusting. Yancey's upset of well-planned military maneuvers by overseeing a party that becomes an orgy and by spinning a laundry unit askew are some the novel's funniest moments. In the end, this pocket-size Falstaff finds himself in actual combat across the ocean -- quivering, frightened, jelly-like -- blundering his way to an irritating act of heroism.
Amos "Pinky" Cody works his way through law school and tries to reach the same level of success as his wealthy childhood friend, Wylie Duval, but his desire for money and influence leads him to a moral dilemma
Claytor Lewis Carson III flees his sleazy, dishonest, obessessive, and sexually driven lifestyle in southern California and withdraws into virtual isolation in the Cumberland Mountains of eastern Kentucky. He "seeks purification by living a simple life and by sweating from his system every ounce of modern society's excesses...Only the threat to Vestil Skank -- a wild, lost unloved youth who longs to escape the killing meanness of Crow County -- is strong enough to crack Claytor's isolation and draw him back...into a courageous and self-sacrificing humanity."--Jacket.
Enthält: The Siegel modular variety of degree two and level four / Ronnie Lee, Steven H. Weintraub. Cohomology of the Siegel modular group of degree two and level four / J. William Hoffman, Steven H. Weintraub.
The purpose of this book is twofold: to present some basic ideas in commutative algebra and algebraic geometry and to introduce topics of current research, centered around the themes of Gröbner bases, resultants and syzygies. The presentation of the material combines definitions and proofs with an emphasis on concrete examples. The authors illustrate the use of software such as Mathematica and Singular. The design of the text in each chapter consists of two parts: the fundamentals and the applications, which make it suitable for courses of various lengths, levels, and topics based on the mathematical background of the students. The fundamentals portion of the chapter is intended to be read with minimal outside assistance, and to learn some of the most useful tools in commutative algebra. The applications of the chapter are to provide a glimpse of the advanced mathematical research where the topics and results are related to the material presented earlier. In the applications portion, the authors present a number of results from a wide range of sources without detailed proofs. The applications portion of the chapter is suitable for a reader who knows a little commutative algebra and algebraic geometry already, and serves as a guide to some interesting research topics. This book should be thought of as an introduction to more advanced texts and research topics. Its novelty is that the material presented is a unique combination of the essential methods and the current research results. The goal is to equip readers with the fundamental classical algebra and geometry tools, ignite their research interests, and initiate some potential research projects in the related areas.
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