Short stories from an author with “a roomy imagination, big appetite for the absurd, healthy sense of humor, [and] heightened sense for the telling detail” (Telegraph-Journal)

Shortlisted for the ReLit Award — Short Fiction

The elderly take to the streets at night for illegal and cathartic electric scooter racing. A copy editor suffers brain damage from West Nile virus and is suddenly filled with cannibalistic violence and award-winning minimalist poetry. Mayor McCheese visits a sexually repressed British couple in the early 1970s and touches their lives forever. A Texas doctor transplants the mind of a meth-addicted convict into the body of a suburban web developer.

Startlingly original, marked by vivid characters and a rich pop-culture sensibility, the short fiction in Ronald Reagan, My Father offer a bleakly hilarious vision that’s both human and uncanny.

Brian Joseph Davis is an artist and the author of Portable Altamont, a collection that garnered praise from Spin Magazine for its “elegant, wise-ass rush of truth [and] hiding riotous social commentary in slanderous jokes.” His audio art has been acclaimed by Wired, Pitchfork, and Salon. Davis is also a columnist for Eye Weekly and wrote about the death of the cassette for the Utne Reader.

Brian Joseph Davis' profile page

• Short-listed, ReLit Award - Short Fiction

“Ronald Reagan, My Father [is] a darkly humourous collection of pop-cultural satires, experiments, jeremiads, and — gasp — conventional bouts of realist storytelling. This is an unabashed mash-up of style, subject and register, reaching unusual heights of narrative diversity.” — Broken Pencil

“Credit Brian Joseph Davis with many things: a roomy imagination, big appetite for the absurd, healthy sense of humour, heightened sense for the telling detail, reference and setting (these are decidedly pop cultural), curiosity and cleverness.” — Telegraph-Journal

“Davis demonstrates real craft, combining humour with narrative development, humane warmth, and a convincing command of vernacular expression … Ronald Reagan, My Father is hyper-satire intended for those who appreciate Davis’s dark humour and share his cultural enthusiasms, which are equal parts populist and arcane. Fans of the edginess of Davis’s previous work will find similar satisfaction in this slim volume.” — Quill & Quire