ECW Press

This debut collection of stories-featuring a talk-show host and her talking hand, a women's activity group that writes to prisoners, and a poncho-making nudist-is as unique as it is compelling. Set in their own melodramatic worlds, the stories take inspiration from Old Hollywood, Gothic novels, art-world gossip, and maybe a Lifetime movie or...

A dark debut from a rising literary talent Brandon Galloway is a 29-year-old nobody, fumbling between dead-end jobs in a town full of drunks and prostitutes. When he lands a position with a pest control company and meets 21-year-old wild-child Melanie Blaxley while fumigating her apartment for bed bugs, Brandons life skips from hapless to...

?Ben is a performance artist about to enter his forties. His father and mother are both dead, and his brother, Jake, is a lousy source of information. So when he begins to struggle with a particularly nagging memory, he doesnt know where to turn. The memory: the assassination by his mother of a prominent neo-Nazi. In a...

?Idaho Winter begins as the story of a boy with an extraordinarily painful existence. He is, through no fault of his own, loathed by everyone in the town where he lives. His father, Early Winter, feeds him roadkill for breakfast. The crossing guard steers cars toward him as he crosses the road. Parents encourage their children to plot cruelly...

The joke? Toronto thinks its the centre of some multicultural universe, always bragging about how people come from every part of the world to live there. The punch line? Some of them are coming to commit crimes. So yeah, Sharon MacDonald's got a problem Ray; hes too good-looking. But she knows what everybody knows. The whole world...

Overqualified's cover letters are like a slap in the face, but the slap is hilarious, and you can't stop laughing, and as soon as it's over you want to tell all your friends about the slap. You know the kind? Ryan North, Dinosaur Comics "e;Joey Comeau's Overqualified is Judy Blumes Are You There God? Its Me,...