Fiction Short Stories (single Author)
Scandal at the Alphorn Factory
New and Selected Short Fiction, 1984-2024
- Publisher
- Assembly Press
- Initial publish date
- Sep 2024
- Category
- Short Stories (single author)
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781738009886
- Publish Date
- Sep 2024
- List Price
- $23.95
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Description
A new collection of stories by Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist Gary Barwin that put the fab in fabulist.
Scandal at the Alphorn Factory: New and Selected Short Fiction, 1984–2024 couples brand new and uncollected stories with selections of the most playful and ambitious of Barwin’s previous collections, including Cruelty to Fabulous Animals, Big Red Baby, Doctor Weep and Other Strange Teeth, and I, Dr. Greenblatt, Orthodontist, 251–1457.
Barwin’s prose kicks against short fiction’s more traditional forms: these are pieces that flirt with poetry and playwriting. Whole stories—and worlds—are packed into single compact paragraphs. There are narrators and fleas and lists and imperatives and Hitler’s moustache and radiant happiness.
Known as a “whiz-bang storyteller” who can deliver magical, dream-like sequences and truisms about the human condition in the same paragraph, Barwin’s trademark brilliance, wit, and originality are on display in this can’t-miss collection of short fiction.
About the author
Gary Barwin is a writer, composer, and performer. He is the author of numerous books and chapbooks of poetry and fiction including the poetry collections frogments from the frag pool: haiku after basho (written with derek beaulieu) and Raising Eyebrows and Outside the Hat (Coach House Books) and the fiction collections Doctor Weep and other strange teeth, Big Red Baby (The Mercury Press), and Cruelty to Fabulous Animals (Moonstone Press). He is the author of The Mud Game, a novel written with Stuart Ross (The Mercury Press). Barwin is also the author of several books for children including Seeing Stars, a young adult novel (Stoddart Kids) nominated for an Arthur Ellis Award and the CLA YA Book of the Year, and Killer Poodle Made Me Island King (Fox Meadow), co-winner of the Muskoka Novel Marathon 2003. Barwin received a PhD in Music Composition and currently teaches music at Hillfield-Strathallan College and creative writing at McMaster University. Barwin lives in Hamilton, where he has cultivated vague but colourful illusions about his writing. Please don’t tell him.
Editorial Reviews
Praise for Gary Barwin
“[D]arkly humorous and affecting.”—Publishers Weekly (on Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted)
“There are few voices in Canadian writing as original as Barwin’s.”—Toronto Star
“[Gary Barwin] proves again why he’s one of the most distinct voices in Canadian lit.” —The Globe and Mail
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