Overview
16 stories of love, death, dignity, and humanity
A cast of characters struggling with forces that perplex and threaten to consume them populate this collection of wildly bizarre short stories. From a smuggling operation to bring oversized toilets banned by the EPA into the United States to a depressed taxi driver lost on Vermont's back roads, and from Stalin's dentist to a child with Down's syndrome exploring the wonders of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, these stories come upon people in the midst of strange upheavals. Reacting with humor, anger, and, often enough, grace, Durcan's blissfully deluded medical research subjects, riot cops, and activists are at once dutiful and vengeful. This energetic collage of styles and subject matter is a sometimes scenic, sometimes exhilarating ride through all walks of life.Reviews
"Liam Durcan spins dynamite stories of unease and empathy and anarchy. . . . His characters are serious and slapstick and nervous, hurtling unhappily into the mortal world, into the wild rumpus." —Mark Jarman, poet and authorAuthor Biography
Liam Durcan is a neurologist. His fiction has been published in The Antigonish Review, Fiddlehead, Maisonneuve, and Zoetrope. He won the 2004 QWF/CBC Quebec short story competition, and has been nominated for the Journey Prize. He lives in Montreal, Quebec.