"A quiet lyricism emerges from these stories and it serves to underscore their emotional impact. Ruben can touch you deeply--and he can break your heart."

--T. C. Boyle, New York Times bestselling author

"EM Forester advised us, 'Only Connect.' But if he read Paul Alan Ruben's Terms of Engagement he'd have to admit that the task is more daunting in father-son relationships. The author's stories strongly plead the case that men today need to learn to better connect, better love each other and be loved."

--Robert Garfield, M.D., Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania

In his debut collection, Paul Alan Ruben portrays father and son as intimate enemies, each yearning to be understood, acknowledged, and validated by the other. Raw and gripping, these nine stories take place in collision territory, where father and son engage the other in uncertain terms, both desperately trying to repair the emotional damage that has led to their alienation.

Inextricably linked by blood, each story pits a vulnerable authority figure--the father--before his vulnerable son, who derives neither protection nor emotional nourishment from him.

At its core, Terms of Engagement delves into the heart of the matter: Who am I, as a father? Who am I, as a son? Who am I, as a human being?


Review

"A quiet lyricism emerges from these stories and it serves to underscore their emotional impact. Ruben can touch you deeply--and he can break your heart."
--T. C. Boyle, author of over twenty-six books of fiction, and recipient of multiple literary awards, including the PEN/ Faulkner Prize for World's End, 1988, and the PEN/Malamud Prize for the collection, T.C. Boyle Stories, 1999.

"Aside from the mother daughter relationship nothing is more important in determining a person's life than the relationship between father and son. No one has captured the tragic and transformative implications better than Paul Alan Ruben."
--Michael Gates Gill, New York Times bestselling author of How Starbucks Saved My Life

"In each of the nine short stories that comprise his debut collection, Paul Ruben anatomizes the hearts and minds of fathers and sons with skill, precision, and linguistic verve to burn. As with the best literature, Terms of Engagement is filled with thrills and surprises."
--Robin Lippincott, author of Blue Territory: A Meditation on the Life and Art of Joan Mitchell

"Who deserves sympathy and who is a jerk? Maybe Oedipus should kill his father on purpose? Maybe father Abraham should ignore the ram and plunge the son? Can we ever know anything, or are we each forever imprisoned in the cave of our own impenetrable skull and/or the ironic conventions of our culture? Engage with Paul Alan Ruben's book and you'll be left reeling. It sizzles."
--Sena Jeter Naslund, author of seven novels, and two collections of short fiction. Her novels Ahab's Wife and Four Spirits were each named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

"With wrecking-ball force and brilliant energy, Paul Alan Ruben reveals his characters' fraught terms of engagement. In galloping sentences that are yet intricate and nuanced, we see the sometimes breath-catching and sometimes haunting frictional force of these father-son relationships. These men converse, argue, and kibbitz and in doing so, wondrously negotiate shaky peace or declare no-holds-barred war."
--Mary Clyde, author of the short story collection, Survival Rates, which received The Flannery O'Conner Award for Short Fiction

"In Paul Alan Ruben's sharply drawn world, sons are sons forever, and no father ever rests in peace."
--Jay Heinrichs, New York Times best selling author of Thank You For Arguing.


About the Author