Fallout From Our Asphalt Hell

Author/poet/journalist Gabriel Hart compresses twenty pieces of his most irreverent 'world-burning' fiction spanning 2015-2020, including the previously unpublished novelette-length American nightmare Skattertown. "Gabriel Hart is hands down one of the most energetic writers out there. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to name one besides Hunter S. Thompson off the top of my head that could crank out line after line of insightful, muscular, serpentine prose and make it look so easy. And Hart's energy isn't only apparent because he's a musician, a journalist, a fiction writer, and a poet whose seemingly tireless productivity is tough to keep up, but because the words he lays down--no matter the form or genre--are highly charged and consistently propulsive. Always. Without fail. I have yet to read a paragraph or stanza or sentence of his that I haven't reread multiple times simply out of reverence for the skill on display." -- William S. Soldan, author of In Just the Right Light

An office worker hopes a new drug will remedy her toxic personal life... A food blogger moonlights as a detective to give meaning to his gluttony... A rehabbed addict proselytizes with an increasingly bizarre methodology... Lovesick strangers try to heal through a dating app that promises a unique form of catharsis... A quarantined man starts having vivid dreams he's convinced aren't his own... At a party where everyone's "somebody" the crowd grows feverishly reverential of one guest's anonymity... In the prescient world of 'The Cult in My Garage', the characters are desperate for meaning and hungry for connection. Time and again, their attempts at betterment snowball into disaster or backfire spectacularly. And yet they still find ways to dust themselves off and salvage meaning.

"In the freewheeling, debaucherous tradition of Charles Bukowski, a taxi driver's stories from the streets of lowlife Los Angeles. Dan Fante lived the stories he wrote. His voice has the immediacy of a stranger of the next barstool, of a friend who lives on the edge. As he writes in Short Dog (the title comes from street slang for a half-pint of alcohol): I had been back working a cabbie gig as a result of my need for money. And insanity. Hack driver is the only occupation I know about with no boss, and because I have always performed poorly at supervised employment, I returned to the taxi business. The upside, now that I was working again, was that my own boozing was under control and I was on beer only, except for my days off.s"--

At the age of forty-five, unfit and overweight, Clark Berge, a professed Franciscan friar, took up running. In his younger life he had struggled with alcoholism and with his sexual identity. Running became cathartic not just for his body, but for making peace with the lingering shame of a troubled past, facing unresolved questions and coming to a fuller acceptance of who he was. As the elected leader of a worldwide religious community, Clark had the opportunity to run in widely differing urban and wild places – from the English countryside to a South African shantytown to remote Pacific islands. His running adventures opened up larger spiritual insights into the nature of religious life, social activism, contemplation, life on the margins, solitude and community, fear and fortitude, simplicity and living in harmony with creation. This unique memoir of running and religion explores Christian spirituality with a disarming honesty and depth.

Hopeless romantic Isla has had a crush on brooding artist Josh since their first year at the School of America in Paris. And, after a chance encounter in Manhattan over the summer break, romance might be closer than Isla imagined. But as they begin their senior year back in France, Isla and Josh are forced to face uncertainty about their futures, and the very real possibility of being apart. Set against the stunning backdrops of New York, Paris and Barcelona, this is a gorgeous, heart-wrenching and irresistible story of true love, and the perfect conclusion to Stephanie Perkins’s beloved series.

How to Walk with Steve is a memoir of a boy's connection with his autistic brother in a family defined by alcoholism, art, and death in a decaying Midwestern city. With exposed-nerve scenes, Robert Fromberg immerses us in an early childhood made relentlessly unpredictable by autism and addiction; teenage years alone in 1970s New York City; and young adulthood as guardian of his brother after the death of their parents.

FBI Special Agent Ana Grey returns in this psychologically acute, completely and unstoppably suspenseful thriller from April Smith. A fifteen-year-old girl has been abducted and Ana Grey is sent to investigate. When the girl reappears, completely traumatized, Ana realises she is far too emotionally invested in the case. She can no longer separate her own life from the victim's. And if the situation wasn't already sufficiently disturbing, her partner on the investigation is Andrew Berringer, her on-again, off-again lover. As her personal and professional lives converge, Ana reaches a breaking point. She no longer knows who she can trust, no even Berringer, and in a moment of anger fires her gun. Suddenly more than just the case is on the line--it's her whole career.

Millions murdered . . . Millions raped . . . Millions tortured . . . Millions enslaved . . . Millions of men, women and children cast to the winds.No matter what you have read about the Second World War, no matter what you have been told about it, no matter what you believe happened during the so-called "Good War" . . . forget it!Now, for the first time in over 70 years, learn what the war and "peace" looked like to those who lost.Discover what was done to Germany and her people in the name of "freedom, democracy, and liberation."In their own words, in graphic detail, this is their story . . .