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Willing to take a risk? These are risky tales that celebrate the fragile, stubborn human animal: no matter what shape he takes, relationships he forms--the color of his mind. He is on contradictory flights towards love (wherever he may find it), confrontations with loss, and his search for home. He must also be packed for sudden stopovers in North Africa or "Big Easy" to check out the scenes there. Don't expect consistency. These stories leap like fleas from slapstick-farce in "The Five Dancing Brothers" through horror in "Neighboring" and "The Rats," past a Saroyanesque caper ("No Sabbaticals in Tinseltown") and gay-world hustle ("Close Shave.") to end in the dream-reality of "House of Children." You will meet some unusual folks: Big Tex from Peoria, Branka the Gypsy, the Brainert Boys, the Can Man, and Azzi's Wife. Maybe they will remind you of someone--maybe you. Two volumes of Jack Beach's poetry have been published by 1 at Books Library: THE THREE MILE BRIDGE: Across Pensacola Bay on a Span of Poems, and THE GRAND TOUR: A Steamer Trunk of Travel Poems. WITHOUT A NET is his first prose work in print.