The Moth and the Stars is a novel set in the dark and seedy streets of Depression-era Chicago. The story revolves around Ben Kenneth, an unemployed newspaperman who suddenly finds himself responsible for supporting his widowed sister, Margaret, following the unexplained death of his crass brother-in-law, Harold. But Ben's chance involvement in a brutal crime has made him apprehensive about contact with the outside world. He eventually finds himself torn between a man who tempts him with the power of freedom and self-preservation and the one man who can save his neck--and his soul.

A novel about the uneasy relation between devotion and dependence, The Moth and the Stars is in ten chapters, approximately 200 double-spaced pages, and is available on the Worldwide Web. If interested in reading the novel and providing a critique, send the message "read novel," with your name and email address, to