Few writers capture the human spirit and its desperate quest for meaning like H. E. Francis. His previously published stories have given us just a hint of what Francis could offer in a novel.
   Goya, Are You With Me Now? is a masterful achievement in literature. By way of a revelation while studying Goya’s Black Paintings, a well-known photographer (Brand) searches for the world of true art—the understanding and realization of immortality. Through the eyes of his dearest friend, Ferris, we see the emerging secrets of Brand’s life and his struggle against the barely known Nazi past of his father, whose unconscious shadow becomes blacker and denser when condoned by Brand’s mother. In search of illusive answers, the journeys of Ferris and Brand take them to Providence and Bristol, Rhode Island; Huntsville, Alabama; and Madrid.
   In one of the most compelling dramas of our time, this work makes one feel the despair of having an abyss between one’s self and one’s aspiration to a calling.