Local author Thomas S. Tharp released his first collection of short stories in May called My Other Lives. This collection consists of 10 stories that he has been working on since 2014.
Tharp began as a visual artist before he started writing fiction. Many of his stories resemble his drawings with their ability to evoke the mysterious and unexplainable. The inspiration for most of his work comes from his own life experiences, observations and interpretations.
“They’re just ideas that occurred to me. Usually, it has to do with something unusual going on that I can attribute a different definition to,” Tharp said.
The collection explores the oddities of human behavior in the form of impressionistic and surreal stories. Using the magical and stark realism of modern life Tharp brings forward his unusual perspective on life in a thought-provoking and creative way.
After building his collection of short stories over ten years he finally decided to take the step to officially have his work published shortly after his retirement. He and his friend Kevin Lyle worked on getting his stories self-published through Amazon so that Tharp’s work could be preserved and shared with the world.
“The primary reason is because I’m getting old and everything’s on my computer. What happens if the computer is gone? I never existed,” Tharp said. “So first and foremost is to put a marker down and say this is what he did.”
Tharp also used the book to pay tribute to his brother, Michael K. Tharp’s, art. The cover art is a portion of his construction Cosmological Model #3. The art piece is a mechanism that represents the opposite of the “the Almighty” hand, but rather fate randomly reaching down and affecting aspects of people’s lives.
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This is the first collection of Tharp’s stories and what he considers an introduction to his writing. These first stories are more accessible and have received good feedback from his friends and family. The second collection, which he plans on releasing in the next year, has more abstract and dark stories.
There is often a theme that can be found within Tharp’s short stories. The first story of My Other Lives, “The Mark,” centers around people’s belief in superstition and how in the end it’s just superstition.
Another story that Tharp believes stands out amongst the rest is “Borrowed Time” a story about a man who is slowly losing his memory. In the story, the reader follows the man through the descent of losing his memories.
His work “A Bed of Letters” is also an example of how he takes occurrences from real life and turns them into his stories. One day he read about a man living in kitchen cabinets for 14 years and used this as inspiration for the story. He takes events like these and adds his darker twists to them.
Tharp writes to explore the mystery and magic behind events whether they are real or fictional. He writes to reveal what is behind that “imaginary curtain.”
“I do not write to tell you what you already know or to document the familiar,” he said.
The second volume of Tharp’s short stories will not be the last time to see his name in print. He also has a few longer stories that he hopes to publish in the future. In one of these stories, he stays with his theme of writing about the unknown in the form of a detective novel.
He drifts away from the usual mystery-solving path of the story and instead focuses on the different events that are occurring around the detective.
The book is available for purchase on Amazon in paperback for $9.95 or on Kindle for $4.95.
For more information and to purchase My Other Lives visit amazon.com
