The Foy Davis project has been ongoing since I published the first story online in 2004. Since then I’ve written forty stories about this man from his birth to the year 2021 when Foy turns sixty. I’ve even written about his death, though I’m keeping that one to myself for now. I think I’ll know when it’s time to publish that final story.

Some of the stories are closely linked, though each can be read on its own. But most of the stories stand alone and are scattered throughout this man’s life with no thread connecting them apart from larger themes that I’m happy to let you discover on your own.

The stories can be read in any order. You come to know Foy the way you come to know any person. We are never presented with an orderly timeline of someone’s life. You begin to know a person by combining your shared experiences with the stories she tells you about her history.

My intent is to continue my journey with Foy, writing up and down the timeline of his life, filling in gaps that answer questions about him, and seeing where his story eventually leads us.

What we know about Foy so far:

Foy was born in Fort Davis, Texas in 1961. His father was a minister. His mother was something of a skeptic. He spent his childhood immersed in the religious culture of his small hometown. His family moved to Houston when he was 11. He ended up becoming a minister for fifteen or twenty years. He seems to have been a kind and genuine sort of minister, though terribly introspective and somewhat troubled or dissatisfied with church life. He left the ministry after his wife left him, and he began to wander through life trying to come to grips with his losses and doubts. Most of this takes place in volume I.

Foy ended up working as an editor at Babcock Wellman, a company that does something – we don’t know what. Much of volume II will pick up with Foy’s life in the office.

Gordon Atkinson