When X Equals Marylou collects stories about photographers, balding men, ghost chasers, doppelgangers, bibliophiles, and dystopian subversives, to name but a few. It's a mix not only of characters, but of time, and of worlds--moving from Russia to Hungary to Canada, from small towns to big cities to the interior of dreams, from suburbia to welfare offices to oman interrogations to Alcoholics Anonymous to the Library of Alexandria.
This new collection, from the author of Doggone, is a kind of beguiling miscellany, with each story opening another door, offering another glimpse, all in the hope that readers come away not so much with the experience of having read one book, but many. After all, it's what a book of stories should be; a scattering of perception rather than a coherence.

Tamas Dobozy was born in Nanaimo, BC, and has spent much of his life on the West Coast, in Powell River, Victoria, and Vancouver. He has also lived in Toronto, Montreal, and Budapest, Hungary. His work has been published in journals throughout North America, and in 1995 he won the annual sub-TERRAIN short fiction contest. After receiving his PhD in English from the University of British Columbia, he moved to St. John`s, Newfoundland, to teach full time in the Department of Language and Literature at Memorial University. His first book was Doggone. He was nominated for the prestigous Pushcart Prize for his story "Tales of a Hungarian Resistance". When X Equals Marylou was also been shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Award.

Tamas Dobozy's profile page

• Long-listed, Nominated for the Danuta Gleed Award

Tamas Dobozy is something of a daredevil. . . his stories are full of rewards.
-Amazon.ca

Amazon.ca

Dobozy's stories sparkle like shards of glass.
-The Globe & Mail

The Globe & Mail

The writing in these stories is often slightly surreal, a quality that comes from Dobozy's ability to blend beauty with harshness. . . [Dobozy's stories are] sharp and edgy but entrancing. . .
-Jay Ruzesky in The Malahat Review

The Malahat Review

Rich and thoughtful without being too sentimental, these stories are sharp and observant.
-The Portland Mercury

Portland Mercury

It's not always a pleasant world that Dobozy creates, but his writing is too powerful (and too real) to stop reading.
-Nexus

Nexus

Gritty, sexy, and all too real.
-Toronto Star

Toronto Star

Dobozy looks at the ills of modernity with an acute eye. He's a psychologically-attentive writer. . . a major literary talent in the making.
-Westender

Westender

Reading one of Dobozy's compellingly odd tales is like floating through a dream world. His characters' Freudian longings are out in the open, and his logic and language are those of a mildly upsetting nightmare.
-The Gazette

The Gazette

The stories in When X Equals Marylou. . . are the literary equivalent of broken glass in a spoonful of honey. They go down smoothly, with a bit of prickling, then tear the reader apart when they least expect it. Dobozy is an expansive talent.
-Quill & Quire

Quill & Quire