Stories from Rami's Cafe (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780989673198)

Rami's Café is the quintessential neighborhood café lunch counter, high-back booths, waitresses, not servers, great food, open only for breakfast and lunch, lots of regulars, and a warm, welcoming atmosphere. In some way, each of these stories was written or greatly revised at the counter at Rami's Café. The stories are filled with interesting characters, plot twists, colorful dialogue, and ahhh and oh no moments: a paperboy and a Madam become best friends that answers secrets about his father; two virtuosos, one a pianist the other a singer, who experienced paralyzing stage fright that ruined their careers, meet serendipitously in the Atlanta airport, a meeting that saves them both; a scared, timid white man takes his injured black friend to a hospital where "coloreds aren't allowed" and defies Jim Crow segregation in 1950s Mississippi; and two sisters, one a drug-dealing, money laundering convict who receives forgiveness, the other a seriously neurotic single mother who find redemption after years of resentment and unbridle rage. These are but four of the stories in this entertaining and compelling collection.