Meet Thomas Rosanoff: med student and researcher.
Meet his subjects: three homeless men who believe they are God.

Ever since his girlfriend ended things, Thomas’s life has been on a downward spiral. A gifted medical student, he has spent his entire adulthood struggling to escape the legacy of his father, an esteemed psychiatrist who used him as a test subject when he was a boy. Thomas lived his entire childhood watched over by researchers lurking behind one-way glass.

But now the tables have turned. Thomas is the researcher, and he’s convinced an experiment he has concocted will cure three homeless men of their delusional claims. When the experiment careens out of control, however, Thomas is forced to confront the voices echoing in his own head and the ghosts of his own past.

An explosively imaginative tour de force, The Shoe on the Roof questions our definitions of sanity and madness while exploring the magical reality that lies just beyond the world of scientific fact.

Travel writer and novelist Will Ferguson is the author of several award-winning memoirs, including Beyond Belfast, about a 560-mile walk across Northern Ireland in the rain; Hitching Rides with Buddha, about an end-to-end journey across Japan by thumb; and most recently the humour collection Canadian Pie, which includes his travels from Yukon to PEI.

Ferguson's novels include Happiness™, a satire set in the world of self-help publishing, and Spanish Fly, a coming-of-age tale of con men and call girls set amid the jazz clubs of the Great Depression. His work, which has been published in more than twenty languages around the world, has been nominated for both an IMPAC Dublin Award and a Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and he is a three-time winner of the Leacock Medal.

www.willferguson.com

 

Will Ferguson's profile page

“Ferguson is a keen observer of landscapes and cityscapes, and has a brilliant ear for dialogue and accent…. you will never see those creative 419 emails in your inbox in quite the same way.”

The Gazette (Montreal)

Praise for The Shoe on the Roof

“Ferguson is a skillful and original writer, and over all, the novel is full of life. . . . The Shoe on the Roof’s lasting strength is in such sly jabs at the “alternative facts” and deep divisions we’re now reckoning with, making it a tale for the times.”

The Globe and Mail

“Heart-wrenching, fascinating, and scary …. An unflinching, ambitious work.”

Toronto Star

“Another gem from this Giller Prize-winning author.”

Canadian Living

“The Shoe on the Roof is often laugh-out-loud funny despite its serious and tragic underpinnings. But it’s also thought-provoking, occasionally violent and will likely stay with readers long after the last page is read.”

Calgary Herald

“A powerful read…. Ferguson is a heavy-weight.”

NOW Magazine

“Absurdly funny.”

Quill & Quire

PRAISE FOR 419

“A deeply ironic, thoroughly engaged politico-philosophical thriller from a comic writer best known for winning a trio of Leacock Awards…. You won’t sleep until you finish, and then rest won’t come easily. Riveting. Provocative.”

The Globe and Mail