Naming the Mannequins is an ecstatic journey through the seamy underbelly of a fading, unnamed town populated with seemingly hollow, anonymous souls. Taking place over the span of one night, this series of linked poems gives us glimpses into the lives of unlikely urban saints on their individual quests for personal humanity and spiritual redemption. Marred by loneliness, violence and desire, Labriola's world, at once lyrical and cinematic, occupies that irresistibly dark place in our cultural consciousness somewhere between film noir, crusade story and the songs of Tom Waits.

Nic Labriola is the author of the narrative poetry collection, Naming the Mannequins (Insomniac Press, 2009), the story collection, Francis and the Animals (Leaping Lion Books, 2013), and the novel, Winnie's Tongue (Insomniac Press, 2015). His work is concerned with the absurd and often grotesque aspects of life and how humour and storytelling help us to survive. He teaches literature and writing at Seneca College. He lives in Toronto with his darling wife, Samantha, and their beautiful daughter, Lucy for as long as the city will allow.

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The story of one terrible night that is every night in the forgotten guts of the city, Nic Labriola's Naming the Mannequins moves with a powerful beat, jagged yet steady and remorseless. It's a condensed novel in verse, a gallery of strange and disastrously linked characters, their failed yearning tattooed in fire on the darkness. — A.F. Moritz, author of Night Street Repairs and The Sentinel