Short fiction collection
Date Published: March 4, 2026
Publisher: Manhattan Book Group
The Road Home is a powerful and emotionally rich literary fiction short story collection that explores the universal search for identity, belonging, and meaning in life.
● Self-discovery, emotional healing and personal transformation● Connection, friendship and Love.● Written by retired psychiatrist Gene Altman, this collection offers readers authentic, insightful, and psychologically rich storytelling.
The
highway stretching through this part of Arizona’s desert country is a naked,
two-lane strip of asphalt unadorned with road signs, billboards or vegetation.
Bone thin, stripped of all but it’s essential self, it is in this respect very
much like the land itself. This is empty country.
The hard-baked sand here is tinged
with red, making it appear like a gigantic wound. Mimbreno Apache legend has it
that someday the countryside will shatter the silence by letting out a cry of
immortal pain such as the human ear has never heard. For the present though,
the only sound is the whine of an occasional vehicle as it speeds on through, a
semi-conscious bullet in the hot, still air.
... A man about 40, and a woman a
decade or so younger, are standing in the middle of the highway. Hands on hips,
they are panting hard after chasing their own ‘98 Chevy pickup down the road,
to no avail.
“Any goddam fool’d know better
than to let on to strangers he was carrying whole his life savings,” the man
bawls. He is wiry and punctuates his words with wild gestures. “But not you.
Oh, Jesus, not you!”
Kayla stares down the highway,
where she sees the Black Spirit, adorned with raven feathers, dancing – toe,
toe, left heel, toe, toe right heel, and chanting to the beat of his drum. Tom
can’t see him, she knows. She takes a step back and the vision disappears.
Before dedicating four decades to clinical psychiatry in Hawaii, Altman worked as a professional photographer in New York City. His candid photography and prose collection, Cityscapes: Intimate Strangers, earned praise for its evocative storytelling and emotional impact.
After retiring from psychiatry, Altman turned his focus to writing literary short fiction inspired by his lifelong passion for helping individuals better understand themselves. His stories explore themes of self-discovery, friendship and love—making his work resonate with readers seeking thoughtful, character-driven narratives.
With a unique perspective shaped by both psychology and art, Gene Altman crafts compelling stories that illuminate the complexities of the human experience.
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