Three Years With The Rat

Shortlisted for the 2017 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, Speculative Fiction Category A young man's quest to find his missing sister will catapult him into a dangerous labyrinth of secrets in this provocative, genre-bending, and page-turning debut. After several years of drifting between school and go-nowhere jobs, a young man is drawn back into the big city of his youth. The magnet is his beloved older sister, Grace: always smart and charismatic even when she was rebelling, and always his hero. Now she is a promising graduate student in psychophysics and the centre of a group of friends who take "Little Brother" into their fold, where he finds camaraderie, romance, and even a decent job. But it soon becomes clear that things are not well with Grace. Always acerbic, she now veers into sudden rages that are increasingly directed at her adoring boyfriend, John, who is also her fellow researcher. When Grace disappears, and John shortly thereafter, the narrator makes an astonishing discovery in their apartment: a box big enough to crawl inside, a lab rat, and a note that says This is the only way back for us. Soon he embarks on a mission to discover the truth, a pursuit that forces him to question time and space itself, and ultimately toward a perilous confrontation at the very limits of imagination. This kinetic novel catapults the classic noir plot of a woman gone missing into the 21st century city, where so-called reality crashes into speculative science in a novel reminiscent of Danielewski's House of Leaves. Three Years with the Rat is simultaneously a mind-twisting mystery that plays with the very nature of time and the story of a young man who must face the dangerously destructive forces we all carry within ourselves.

A Quill & Quire Best Book of the Year A Globe & Mail Best Short Fiction Title A National Post Best Short Fiction Title A January Magazine Best Book of the Year Shortlisted for the 2014 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize Longlisted for the 2014 Frank O'Connor Award "Complicated, passionate, genuine."—Chatelaine Women. Young women, old women. The hair-obsessed, the politically driven, the sure-footed, the bony-butted, the awkward and compulsive and alone. Sleep-deprived and testy. Exhausted and accepting. Among the innumerable wives, husbands, sisters, and in-laws vexed by short temper and insecurity throughout this short story collection, Cynthia Flood’s protagonists stand out as citizens of a reality that the rest of the world will only partially understand. New from the Journey Prize-winning author, Red Girl Rat Boy is a collection of astonishing range and assured technique, whose voices—gothic, peculiar, domestic, and strange—remain as passionate and complex as ever. Praise for Red Girl Rat Boy “Revenge and politics season this potent and passionate collection of stories. Flood excavates indelible histories that haunt even those who’ve shaken the dust of the past.” —Aritha van Herk, author of Judith “Flood’s eye is unflinching, her language energetic and precise, her vision bracing, passionate and entirely lacking in sentimentality.”—Nancy Richler, author of The Imposter Bride “The notary in ‘Dirty Work’ has ‘retired from witnessing how rough human existence is.’ Fortunately for us, Cynthia Flood has not … these stories prove her to be among our great North American fiction writers.”—Betsy Warland, author of Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing “Raw energy is Cynthia Flood’s territory. This is a superb collection.”—Laurie Lewis, author of Little Comrades “Cynthia Flood is full of surprises. If there’s one thing that characterizes her elegant, crystal-sharp short stories, it’s that element of surprise … they reward the attentive reader with surprise and delight”—Dave Margoshes, author of A Book of Great Worth

Steve details his descent from bright star to burnout in this newly repackaged edition of the definitive, highly acclaimed novel from the creator of Veronica Mars and Party Down. Houston, sophomore year: Steve is on top of the world. He and his friends are the talk of the school. He’s in love with a terrific girl. He can even deal with “the astronaut”—a world-famous hero who happens to be his father. San Diego, senior year: Steve is bummed out, drugged out, flunking out. A no-nonsense counselor says he can graduate if he writes a 100-page paper. So Steve starts writing, and as the paper becomes more and more personal, he reveals how a National Merit Scholar has become an under-achieving stoner. And in telling how he got to where he is, Steve discovers how to get to where he wants to be.

From the creators of This Is a Taco, Andrew Cangelose and Josh Shipley are back with a humorous tale of a “flying” rat and pigeon finding friendship despite their differences. This is a book about pigeons… “You mean ‘flying rats’? Pigeons and flying rats are basically the same thing!” Pigeons are considered one of the best flyers in the world. “Pigeons and flying rats are NOT the same thing. This book is about pigeons. Pigeons that can FLY!”

In an unnamed Third World country, in the not-so-distant future, three “dumpsite boys” make a living picking through the mountains of garbage on the outskirts of a large city. One unlucky-lucky day, Raphael finds something very special and very mysterious. So mysterious that he decides to keep it, even when the city police offer a handsome reward for its return. That decision brings with it terrifying consequences, and soon the dumpsite boys must use all of their cunning and courage to stay ahead of their pursuers. It’s up to Raphael, Gardo, and Rat—boys who have no education, no parents, no homes, and no money—to solve the mystery and right a terrible wrong. Andy Mulligan has written a powerful story about unthinkable poverty—and the kind of hope and determination that can transcend it. With twists and turns, unrelenting action, and deep, raw emotion, Trash is a heart-pounding, breath-holding novel.

“I Was a Rat!” So insists a scruffy boy named Roger. Maybe it’s true. But what is he now? A terrifying monster running wild in the sewers? The Daily Scourge is sure of it. A victim of “Rodent Delusion”? The hospital nurse says yes. A lucrative fairground freak? He is to Mr. Tapscrew. A champion wriggler and a budding thief? That’s what Billy thinks. Or just an ordinary small boy, though a little ratty in his habits? Only three people believe this version of the story. And it may take a royal intervention—and a bit of magic—to convince the rest of the world. Set against the backdrop of a Royal Wedding—and a playful parody of the press, I Was a Rat! is a magical weaving of humor, fairy tale, and adventure.

The Rat King is fourteen illustrated adventures exploring horror and its tributaries. Featuring stories adapted by The NoSleep Podcast, this collection will stay with you long after the final page is turned.

“A painful truth of family life: the most tender emotions can change in an instant. You think your parents love you but is it you they love, or the child who is theirs?” --Joyce Carol Oates, My Life as a Rat Which should prevail: loyalty to family or loyalty to the truth? Is telling the truth ever a mistake and is lying for one’s family ever justified? Can one do the right thing, but bitterly regret it? My Life as a Rat follows Violet Rue Kerrigan, a young woman who looks back upon her life in exile from her family following her testimony, at age twelve, concerning what she knew to be the racist murder of an African-American boy by her older brothers. In a succession of vividly recalled episodes Violet contemplates the circumstances of her life as the initially beloved youngest child of seven Kerrigan children who inadvertently “informs” on her brothers, setting into motion their arrests and convictions and her own long estrangement. Arresting and poignant, My Life as a Rat traces a life of banishment from a family—banishment from parents, siblings, and the Church—that forces Violet to discover her own identity, to break the powerful spell of family, and to emerge from her long exile as a “rat” into a transformed life.