PATRICK DONAHUE
Lawyer, Outdoorsman, Advocate, Veteran
Patrick H. Donahue has been writer since his days as a Marine serving in Viet Nam, through his time as an English teacher in Peru, as an engineer for a major aircraft manufacturer, and during his decades-long work as a public interest lawyer. His first published book, Trajectories, is a collection of short stories, poems, and an original music composition, reflecting many of the trajectories of the author’s well-lived life.
Everyone Has Trajectories. What’s Yours?
What we do with what we have makes us who we are. The characters in these stories—really short movies without a screen—carry out the trajectories of their own lives in their own universe, in their own way, as they see it.
Some like Fang in “El gringo feo,” discover that love really does conquer all and find redemption. Others like the Lieutenant in “It don’t mean nothin,” do not share this experience, even though his story offers a window into the seldom discussed daily life inside a platoon of combat infantrymen in Vietnam.
Sometimes outcomes are what we hoped for, but often end up with unanticipated consequences, like Needles finds in “A Very Special Tree.” We all have our triumphs, like Mimzy in “Mimzy Finds A Home.” And our losses: “817.” Is what we see of life is all there is or are their other trajectories—or even a parallel universe—as explored in “Enanthiomorphysis.”
