Two childhood friends from Scotland and two illegitimate half-brothers from the American South suffer and enjoy all manner of bizarre experiences which, as it turns out, are somehow interconnected and, surprisingly enough, meaningful. An eclectic cast of characters includes Carl Jung, Fatty Arbuckle, Virgil, Marat, Socrates, and Tony Randall. Love, greed, hope, revenge, organized religion, and Hollywood are alternately tickled and throttled as Craig...

In Terms of Endearment, Larry McMurtry created some of his most memorable characters. He now reintroduces us to Aurora Greenway along with her family, friends and lovers, presenting a funny and bittersweet story about growing up and growing old. Since her daughter Emma's death, Aurora has tried her best raising her three grandchildren -- but Tommy is in prison; Teddy has just been released from a mental hospital; and Melanie is pregnant and doesn't...

While they are discussing the possible illnesses they may have, Jerome, Harris, and George all realize they suffer from the same thing-working too much. Upon the realization, the three best friends decide that they must go on a vacation. After rejecting the ideas of a sea trip or country stay, because Jerome doesn't like the sea, and Harris finds the country to be dull, the men decide on a boat trip. With their bags packed and with the company of...

When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock and the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen.

Award-winning author of New York Times Editor's Choice Tales of the New WorldIn prose that is darkly humorous and alive with detail, Valiant Gentlemen reimagines the lives and intimate friendships of humanitarian and Irish patriot Roger Casement; his closest friend, Herbert Ward; and Ward's extraordinary wife, Argentinian-American heiress Sarita Sanford, in a uniquely human account of some of the early 20th century's larger historical figures. "PEN/Faulkner...

"From the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of Hold it 'Til it Hurts comes a dark and socially provocative southern-fried comedy about four liberal UC Berkeley students who stage a mock lynching during a Civil War reenactment--a fierce, funny, tragic work from a bold new writer"--

He thinks he's a deadly ninja. He's not. He's Barry Harris and he still lives with his mum. Barry's been patient, but after twenty-seven years of trimming hedges for people he hates, he's had enough. All he wants to do is to find his missing father and to discover his inner ninja. But life's not done with throwing him curveballs. A fatal mistake catapults Barry into the adventure of a lifetime. With talking hedges, samurai ghosts, meddling psychotherapists,...

The hilarious first novel by the #1 bestselling author of Running with Scissors, Dry, A Wolf at the Table, and You Better Not Cry, Sellevision is Augusten Burrough's darkly funny and vastly entertaining skewering of a very troubled home-shopping channel. Welcome to the world of Sellevision, America's premier retail broadcasting network. When Max Andrews, the much loved and handsome (that is, lonely and gay) host of a "Toys for Tots" segment, accidentally...

Loss. Grief. Centipedes. Silence. The word "no." The word "yes." A high school poetry contest that may or may not be linked to the end of the world. The characters in this collection are under attack. A grief-baffled son hopes to save an innocent insect from a toxic genocide, a daughter struggles to accept loss while visiting a community overwhelmed by denial, a sorrow-stricken father recalls his bizarre final conversation with his only child; the...

Following the death of a friend, the poet and pets' mortician Dennis Barlow finds himself entering the artificial Hollywood paradise of the Whispering Glades Memorial Park. Within its golden gates, death, American-style, is wrapped up and sold like a package holiday--and Dennis gets drawn into a bizarre love triangle with Aimée Thanatogenos, a naïve Californian corpse beautician, and Mr. Joyboy, a master of the embalmer's art. Waugh's dark and savage...