An aging tennis player tries to come to grips with life outside the spotlight. A would-be writer finds himself a media celebrity when his one-word opus becomes an instant sensation. A penitent schoolteacher endlessly punishes himself for the sins of the modern world. These are just three of the stories found in Sketches of Invalids, the first short story collection by novelist Randall DeVallance. Compiling some of his best published works along with new, never-before-seen stories, Sketches of Invalids explores the thin line separating the average person from the outcast, and shows that to be "normal" often means being anything but.