"Ghost Traps" is a collection of twelve stories about characters
who are on the edge and under duress, individuals backed against a
wall as they try to free themselves from their own limitations,
habits, and destructive desires.
In the title story, Harper learns to fish from a man whose son is
"catching hell" in the Korean War. When the son returns, he begins
stealing lobsters from Harper's traps, and Harper, out of a sense
of obligation and guilt, teaches him to fish, vainly hoping it will
help the man put together the pieces of a life that war shattered.
In "The Connoisseur," a wealthy collector on an archeological dig
in the Himalayan foothills realizes he "knows how to stay out of
jail, charge rent, build hotels, and pass Go," but has not
spiritual life. Unlike his guide, a Sherpa, who could remain
content with nothing but the Himalayas, the collector finds himself
wanting in all but material success.
Whether they win or lose, Robert Abel's characters make the best of
circumstance with creativity, wit, passion, and endurance. In
"Lawless in New York," Professor Alice Reinquist, the sole woman in
her university's delegation to an academic conference, maintains
her sense of humor by thinking of Wonder Woman's Gold Lasso, which
makes "even the most cunning of evildoers unable to prevaricate."
Tracey Wynn, a woman who considers herself on loan to her aloof
boyfriend, keeps her options open by always leaving a portion of
her neck exposed because she "cannot stand being closed in by
anything and because she knows it invites at least a fantasy kiss."
In "Appetizer," a man fishing in Alaska resourcefully asks two
hungry grizzly bears, "How much love can $600 worth of salmon buy?"
Although many of these characters inhabit a world in which the
bottom is about to fall out, they invariably find good reason--and
courage--to take the next treacherous step. From the salty waters
of Cape Cod Canal to the mountains of Tibet; from a Puerto Rican
pub to an elegant New York bar where "Susan Sontag and Norman
Mailer had no doubt insulted each other," "Ghost Traps" is filled
with people hustling for survival and fighting for identity in a
world reluctant to give anyone an even break.
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