Staunton author Chris Cleary will read from his latest novel, The Vitality of Illusion, sign copies, and discuss his work at Black Swan Books at 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 4. There will be refreshments and door prizes.
Jasper Glasher, ambitious but naïve, escapes his provincial Quakerism to embrace the vibrant theater life of 1925 Philadelphia. He joins the Rieves Players and is quickly captivated by the director’s wife, the alluring but enigmatic Delia Rieves. His passion tests his allegiance to her husband, whose charisma and reckless energy mask a dark secret. Jasper’s discoveries take him from the thrills of the vaudeville stage to the bohemian backstreets of Paris, where he must come to terms with painful realities that lurk beneath the vitality of illusion.
Cleary is a native of southeastern Pennsylvania, in which many of his stories are set, and The Vitality of Illusion continues the mythology of the fictitious Middletown and its environs. He is the author of the novels The Vagaries of Butterflies, The Ring of Middletown, and At the Brown Brink Eastward. His story “An Idea of the Journey” appears in the second volume of Everywhere Stories. He teaches literature and writing at Buffalo Gap High School,
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