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In this “charming” and melancholic novel, a former child sleuth “investigates the hard-to-crack case of Lost Innocence” (Entertainment Weekly). A Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist Book of the Year In the twilight of a mysterious childhood full of wonder, Billy Argo, boy detective, is brokenhearted to find that his younger sister and crime-solving partner, Caroline, has committed suicide. Ten years later, Billy, age thirty, returns from an extended stay at St. Vitus’ Hospital for the Mentally Ill to discover the world full of unimaginable strangeness: office buildings vanish without reason, small animals turn up without their heads, and cruel villains ride city buses to complete their evil schemes. Lost within this unwelcoming place, Billy befriends two lonely, extraordinary children—one a science fair genius, the other a charming, silent bully. With a nearly forgotten bravery, he experiences the unendurable boredom of a telemarketing job; encounters a beautiful, desperate pickpocket; and confronts the nearly impossible solution to his sister’s case. Along a path laden with hidden clues and codes, the boy detective may learn the greatest secret of all: the necessity of the unknown. “Haunted by the mystery of his sister’s death and feeling that a lapse in his sleuthing may be to blame, Billy is determined to find out the reason for her suicide and to punish those responsible . . . The story of Billy’s search for truth, love and redemption is surprising and absorbing. Swaddled in melancholy and gentle humor, it builds in power as the clues pile up.” —Publishers Weekly “The author gives Billy a gallery of rogues to combat and even sends him to investigate the Convocation of Evil at a local hotel (‘Featured Panel: To Wear a Mask?’). Meno sets himself a complicated task, marooning his straight-arrow, pulp-fiction protagonist in a world uglier than the Bobbsey Twins ever faced but refusing to go for satire. Instead, the author takes his compulsive investigator at face value.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “Comedic, imaginative, empathic . . . investigates the precincts of grief [and] our longing to combat chaos with reason.” —Booklist
As children Billy Argo and his sister Caroline solve a series of mysteries using a detective kit, but as an adult, Billy faces an uncertain future after his sister commits suicide and he finds himself trying to connect with the world again after a stay in
The debut novel from Akashic’s new imprint, Punk Planet Books. Also check out the smash hits How the Hula Girl Sings, Tender as Hellfire, and The Boy Detective Fails. “A funny, hard-rocking first-person tale of teenage angst and discovery.” —Booklist “Captures the loose, fun, recklessness of midwestern punk.” —MTV.com Hairstyles of the Damned is an honest, true-life depiction of growing up punk on Chicago’s south side: a study in the demons of racial intolerance, Catholic school conformism, and class repression. It is the story of the riotous exploits of Brian, a high school burnout, and his best friend, Gretchen, a punk rock girl fond of brawling. Based on the actual events surrounding a Chicago high school’s segregated prom, this work of fiction unflinchingly pursues the truth in discovering what it means to be your own person.
A haunted ex-con returns to his hometown: “Fans of hard-boiled pulp fiction will particularly enjoy this novel” (Booklist). Luce Lemay is out on parole three years after an awful tragedy sent him to prison. In his small Illinois town, he does his best to find hope: in a new job at the local Gas-N-Go; in his companion and fellow ex-con, Junior Breen, who spells out puzzling messages to the unquiet ghosts of his past; and finally, in the arms of the lovely but reckless Charlene. But sorrow and violence lie in his path, in this suspenseful exploration of a country bright with the far-off stars of forgiveness and dark with the still-looming shadow of the death penalty. “A wonderful accomplishment . . . The power is in the writing. Mr. Meno is a superb craftsman.” —Hubert Selby Jr., bestselling author of Last Exit to Brooklyn “The author moves the story along at a surprisingly fast and easy pace.” —Kirkus Reviews “Moving . . . Meno has a poet’s feel for small-town details, life in the joint and the trials an ex-con faces, and he’s a natural storyteller with a talent for characterization.” —Publishers Weekly
From the author of Between Everything and Nothing, “an inspired collection of twenty stories, brilliant in its command of tone and narrative perspective” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Demons in the Spring is a collection of twenty short stories by Joe Meno, author of the smash hits The Boy Detective Fails and Hairstyles of the Damned, with illustrations by twenty artists from the fine art, graphic art, and comic book worlds—Todd Baxter, Kelsey Brookes, Ivan Brunetti, Charles Burns, Nick Butcher, Steph Davidson, Evan Hecox, Kim Hiorthoy, Paul Hornschemeier, Cody Hudson, Caroline Hwang, kozyndan, Geoff McFetridge, Anders Nilsen, Laura Owens, Archer Prewitt, Jon Resh, Jay Ryan, Souther Salazar, Rachell Sumpter, and Chris Uphues. In these stories, oddly modern moments occur in the most familiar of public places—from offices to airports to schools to zoos to emergency rooms. A young girl refuses to go anywhere unless she’s dressed as a ghost. A bank robbery in Stockholm goes terribly wrong. A teacher becomes enamored with the students in his school’s Model United Nations club. A couple is affected by a strange malady. A miniature city begins to develop in a young woman’s chest. These inventive stories are hilarious, heartbreaking, and unusual. A portion of the author’s proceeds from the book will go directly to benefit 826 CHICAGO, a nonprofit tutoring center, part of the national organization of tutoring centers with branches in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, and Seattle. Finalist for the 2008 Story Prize Time Out Chicago Best Books of 2008 Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2008 “This short story collection succeeds word to word, sentence to sentence, and cover to cover.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
No one dies in Office Girl. Nobody talks about the international political situation. There is no mention of any economic collapse. Nothing takes place during a World War. Instead, this novel is about young people doing interesting things in the final moments of the last century. Odile is a twenty-three-year-old art-school dropout, a minor vandal and a hopeless dreamer. Jack is a twenty-five-year-old shirker who's most happy capturing the endless noises of the city on his out-of-date tape recorder. Together they decide to start their own art movement in defiance of a contemporary culture made dull by both the tedious and the obvious. Set in February 1999 — just before the end of one world and the beginning of another — Office Girl is the story of two people caught between the uncertainty of their futures and the all-too-brief moments of modern life. 'A love story on bicycles' Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief 'Wonderful storytelling panache' The Wall Street Journal 'Fresh and funny' The New York Times 'A sweetheart of a novel' Kirkus Review 'Meno has constructed a snowflake-delicate inquiry into alienation and longing' Booklist
Re-edition of Meno's debut novel, in which he paints a near-fantastical world of trailer park floozies, broken-down '76 Impalas, lost glass eyes and the daily experiences of two boys trying to make sense of their random, sharp lives. Dough and Pill are two brothers living in a trailer park, surrounded by the strange and displaced, who must navigate through a world of constant pain and confusion. 'The power is in the writing. Mr Meno is a superb craftsman.' - Hubert Selby, Jr
Resolving to earn so much money that his mother will no longer stress out over the bills, eleven-year-old Timmy Failure launches a detective business with a lazy polar bear partner named Total but finds their enterprise "Total Failure, Inc." challenged by a college-bound spy and a four-foot-tall girl whom Timmy refuses to acknowledge.
Nameless may not like David Virden, but the case is simple enough: find his ex-wife—and they know where she is. Deliver some papers to her and it's all done. But she refuses the papers, sends a message to Virden to never contact her again, and slams the door. His colleague, Tamara, tells Nameless that Virden threatens to sue, stops payment on his checks, and claims that the woman they located isn't his wife. Then he disappears and his fiancée hires Nameless to find out why. Clearly, someone is trying to make Nameless the monkey in the middle. The investigation that Nameless's partner, Jake Runyon, has to undertake is personal...and urgent. His girlfriend Bryn's son, a pawn in a bitter divorce settlement, is being beaten and every indication is that his father is responsible. Is he bitter enough to take out his frustrations on a young boy, to fracture his arm? Then events turn on Jake: a dead woman, a bloodied Bryn, and a scared and silent child force him to look in other, darker, more deadly directions. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Winner Whiting Writers' Award Winner Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction Finalist for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize Finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Mitchell S. Jackson grew up black in a neglected neighborhood in America's whitest city, Portland, Oregon. In the '90s, those streets and beyond had fallen under the shadow of crack cocaine and its familiar mayhem. In his commanding autobiographical novel, Mitchell writes what it was to come of age in that time and place, with a break-out voice that's nothing less than extraordinary. The Residue Years switches between the perspectives of a young man, Champ, and his mother, Grace. Grace is just out of a drug treatment program, trying to stay clean and get her kids back. Champ is trying to do right by his mom and younger brothers, and dreams of reclaiming the only home he and his family have ever shared. But selling crack is the only sure way he knows to achieve his dream. In this world of few options and little opportunity, where love is your strength and your weakness, this family fights for family and against what tears one apart. Honest in its portrayal, with cadences that dazzle, The Residue Years signals the arrival of a writer set to awe.