With these brilliant and profoundly affecting short tales, William Baer resurrects the long-lost art of clearly and gracefully telling deeply meaningful stories of engaging, memorable, and purposeful plots with themes of enduring moral virtue. His clarity of thought and historical perspective places him in the tradition of Chekhov's masterful characterizations, of Tolstoy's truthful parables, and of Gogol's vision of justice and redemption. One-and-Twenty Tales is a truly astonishing accomplishment in which the author reinvigorates the beauty and wisdom of the great storytelling tradition and the enduring wisdom of our cultural past. These stories, both realistic and redeeming, are timeless and true, and in reading them we are uplifted intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Bravo! - Samuel Maio, author of The Burning of Los Angeles