New Releases by John Bishop

THE STORIES: CONFLUENCE. Visiting his young fiancée, who is acting in a summer stock company, Chuck Janola, a former Pittsburgh Steeler, and now a prosperous businessman, picnics with her in a rural park, overlooking the confluence of three Pennsyl

"The place is a motel in a small Virginia town, where a father and son have come to make funeral arrangements for their son and brother. He was a truck driver, formerly a star high school athlete, who was killed when his rig jackknifed on the highway. As they talk about him, and his life, the possibility that perhaps his death was not accidental at all begins to emerge. Gradually the tension between the two men builds, interrupted at one point by an explosive confrontation with a noisy couple in the next room and while they are united in their grief the gap of communication between them, their differing perception of the dead son and brother, is increasingly evident. In the end we know that the death was not an accident but an escape--fleeing from the disappointment and failure which still infuse the lives of the family left behind."--

"Bobby Horvath, stock car racer, had visions of being the greatest, but he has returned home knowing he isn''t and never will be. Racing brought him excitement and glamour escape from the drudgery of a factory job. The play records his encounters with his father, the wife and daughter he deserted and also other friends and relatives. The action moves in and out of the past and the heart of the play is his struggle to come to terms with himself. But when past and present collide, the results are unexpected. The play is also about a blue-collar mid-American town with its deadening routine of life. Boredom and depression begins to enfold Bobby with its futility and sterility. He returns to racing, even if it means he will be a loser."--Publisher''s description.

THE Ecclesiastical History of John, Bishop of Ephesus, was discovered by Dr. Cureton among the Manuscripts obtained by the British Museum from the convent of St. Mary Deipara, in the desert of Scete, and published in the original Syriac at the Oxford University Press in 1853. It was then his intention, as he mentions in the Preface, to have also undertaken the task of making its contents generally available by means of an English translation; but as more important labours have hitherto prevented the fulfilment of this duty, it has now, with his consent, been undertaken by myself, and I am alone responsible for the correctness with which it has been accomplished. Aeterna Press