Terms of Engagement explores father and son as intimate enemies, each yearning to be understood, acknowledged, and validated by the other. Raw and gripping, these nine stories take place in collision territory—where father and son engage one another in uncertain terms, both desperately trying to repair the emotional damage that has led to their alienation.
Inextricably linked by blood, each story pits a vulnerable authority figure (the father), before his vulnerable son, who derives neither protection nor emotional nourishment from him.
At their core, these are stories of flawed, sympathetic and searching fathers and sons, all of whom—whether they reside in Brooklyn, Manhattan, small-town New Jersey, or the suburbs of Chicago—are extraordinarily conflicted, ordinary people that yearn to be understood, accepted, loved and acknowledged.
Hope is a theme that emerges throughout the collection, a deep-seated hope that what alienates father and son can be resolved. It is that hope that propels: a desperate father’s attempt to get his twenty-something, disrespectful, stay-at-home son off his ass and functioning like an adult; a stupefied teenager’s uncertain effort to somehow rescue his emotionally distant father that he’s inadvertently discovered is gay; a thirty-year absentee father’s meticulously constructed strategy to reconnect to his estranged, adult son; a new dad to break free of his father’s insidious and haunting influence, and locate the courage to take ownership of himself as a father, role model, and a man. Like these four, the other stories’ fathers and sons are also propelled by hope.
Terms of Engagement delves into the heart of the matter: Who am I, as a father? Who am I, as a son? Who am I, as a human being? New York Times bestselling author, T.C. Boyle, says it best, “A quiet lyricism emerges from these stories and it serves to underscore their emotional impact. Ruben can touch you deeply--and he can break your heart.”

Paul Alan Ruben