MALONEY'S ILLUSION

About the Book

Paul Gaines is well-satisfied with his middle-class life until a difficult CEO, Jules Kafka, shuts down the division he heads. The testing escalates to calamity when Paul's wife, Didi, dies suddenly and he becomes a single-father of three.

While he awaits a new assignment, Paul shares an office at corporate headquarters with ex-Board member, John Maloney, who becomes mentor and confidant. As grief over Didi subsides, Paul pursues in turn Elspeth, a television news producer in New York; Michelle, an actress of some repute, while he is on temporary assignment to Paris; and, when he is posted to Tupelo, Mississippi, artless Jeannie. In parallel, as Paul works out his career, child-nurturing and romantic paths, John records in a journal.

Kafka fires Paul under accusation of womanizing. He finds a new position distant from Tupelo but, when repeatedly he is unable to get back there, Jeannie rejects him. He persists anyway until she acquiesces, to easement of the shock of Kafka becoming the CEO of his new company. Meanwhile, he is enlightened about John from journal excerpts the ex-officemate sends, and his special interest is aroused in the recounting of John's winning and losing in Zurich the later-age love of his life.

About the Author

Brought up in Brooklyn, Charles Cherry served on a submarine before going on to Yale and Columbia. His output of fiction, articles and longer non-fiction has been intermingled with a business career that took him to many countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. He lives now in Florida.