Short and punchy, these stories show the cumulative effects of heartbreak and simple dreams while keeping a reserve of hope in even the darkest of circumstances.

    Patrick deWitt is frank, unflinching, and very, very funny as he takes twelve steps towards the abyss." --Hunter Kennedy, The Minus Times"...A reading experience as shivery and enlivening as I've had in a long time." --Dennis Cooper

    This book holds an eclectic amalgamate of sadness, death, surrealism, joy and humor. Often lyrical in style, these worlds of 750 words or less will introduce their readers to exquisite extremes and leave them wanting more. EXCERPT (Words and Pictures by Bill West): He handed out pieces of thick card, one side black, the other side white. He said, "There are no lines in nature, just substance and shadows. Take your stylus and scrape away the black. Show me the picture hidden behind the black ink." I scraped away the black leaving Tom's nose, his brow and the tiny commas of his eyes. I scraped and scraped, but when Mr Miller stopped beside my desk and looked at my picture, there was nothing left, just a white piece of card and curls of ink, like black ash.

    ‘Two hundred and one miniature tales’ is a book aimed to regain a form of narrative which in our time emerges as a cultural synthesis, that brings us closer to the ways our most ancient ancestors used to tell the facts of the physical and psychic world around them.In their rich, plethoric variety, the stories appear to resemble the multicolor bits of glass of a very personal creative kaleidoscope in whose mirrors the author wants to reflect the world in all its mystery, its sublimity, its tragedy and its beauty.