Two friends are inexplicably drawn to a carnival-like orchid garden. A man works obsessively on restoring a mansion he has inherited. An urban dweller is haunted by the echo of cries in the night. A traveller is lured by highway signs directing him to a place that he has always known.
The stories in Home, the follow-up to Mark Macdonald's acclaimed novel Flat, feature characters searching for truth and clarity in a world that is sometimes deceptive, usually miraculous, and often inescapable. Full of dark compulsions and seemingly irrational tendencies, Home is a place where all is not as it seems: authority figures defy reality, and fate takes charge as life and death become mere observances.
Informed by terminal illness and a trust in the wonders of the world, these stories are about anxiety, foreboding, and a sense of calm resignation and peace with matters beyond our control.

Mark Macdonald is the author of the novel, Flat, and Home, a short story collection. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies and publications, including Quickies 2: Short Short Fiction on Gay Male Desire and Carnal Nation: Brave New Sex Fictions. He is the formerbook buyer for Little Sister'sbookstore in Vancouver, and is the editor of Arsenal Pulp Press's series Little Sister's Classics, resurrecting out-of-print gay and lesbian literary classics. He lives in Delta, BC Canada.

Mark Macdonald's profile page

Macdonald has written a literary, yet entertaining and imaginative, collection of stories that stands apart from, say, eighty per cent of the other Canadian short story collections of recent years. . . Home is truly something different for a change.
-Front & Centre

. . .Macdonald's sexual orientation is not a constant issue. . . it is not the subject of his entire oeuvre. His stories adhere to the "I'm here, I'm queer, and I'll talk about it if it comes up in the story" school of writing. Whether that qualifies Home as gay literature or simply literature by a gay author is an argument not worth having, since either way the miscellany is a worthwhile find.
-Gay People's Chronicle

Macdonald's fictional world is shadow-filled, chaotic and suffused with the uncomfortable feeling that all is not what it seems. [He] is a young writer who definitely has something to say.
-Toronto Star