William Palmer

Three Short Novels 1955-1965 William Palmer

In the spring of 2018 at the age of eighty-one, the author attacked a stack of manuscripts that had sat on various shelves for over fifty years. Three short novels, some stories, and many fragments made a dusty pile many inches high. Privateer, the earliest novel, had been written while at Harvard and published in the literary magazine MSS in 1974. In this work, an armed merchant ship in the aftermath of World War II sails into New York harbor to wreak havoc on the lives of a brother and sisterPrimo and Mariewho live in a brothel by a live-chicken market. Zoyhaique, started at Harvard and finished in the navy, a novel of revolution in a South American country, follows the life of Hensoldt, a German with a checkered past and his coconspirators. Theo and Kia, started in the navy and finished at Hopkins, chronicles the loves of Theo, an agent working it appears for the Israelis hunting down apparent Nazis for a bounty, and Kia, whose relation to the Third Reich is ambiguous.