Reading and Book Signing, The Secret Life - The twelve stories in Dr. Ulmer’s collection – written in the tradition of American masters such as Hawthorne, Henry James, and Edith Wharton – center on the notion that the life we inhabit is larger, richer, and sometimes more disquieting than a strictly rational or materialistic view of the world suggests. All good fiction is driven by conflict, and the conflict in these tales is one in which an intelligent, worldly protagonist – often a businessman, a lawyer, or a successful artist – is forced by the action of the story to come to terms with some kind of enlarging mystery. Though set in a recognizable and meticulously rendered modern context, the stories in The Secret Life have deep roots in traditional narratives such as the fable and the fairy tale. They are grounded in the understanding that storytelling is one of the fundamental ways in which human beings have always come to terms with their lives.