Sidney Homan
Purdue University Press , 2008
ISBN: 9781557534866
The storyteller has a fascinating place in our world. The storyteller personalizes history, extends fable, and imparts folk wisdom. The storyteller unfolds images into a multi-layered fabric of voices and places. The storyteller raises hope.
Sidney Homan is a storyteller. He tells tales of growing up in Philadelphia in the 1940s and 50s – accounts of Bruzzy the Bully, of John Crapp, the television salesman, of Leslie Doober and his rotten banana, of drunken Uncle Eddie, and of the Queen of themushrooms.
His eager listeners are children caught in the unreal world of a bone marrow unit. The children apply these stories to their present lives. Homan forges friendships as he meets children coping with the challenge of disease, and the storyteller becomes an actor in the theatre to draw the patients into his world.
Sometimes comic, sometimes bittersweet, A Fish in the Moonlight illuminates the growth of both storyteller and listener. While technology can work wonders, the miracle of comfort can come in simple reflections and connections. The moment of the story itself can be medicine enough.