James Fitzroy isn't doing so well. Though his old friends in Buffalo believe his life in New York City is a success, in fact he writes ridiculous taglines for a greeting card company. Now he's coming home on Thanksgiving to visit his aging father and dying mother, and unlike other holidays, he's not sure how this one is going to end. Buffalo Lockjaw introduces a fresh new voice in American fiction.

“Haunting, incisive . . . King is brilliant.” —ElleAn absorbing, insightful story written in cool, polished prose right to the last conflicted line.” —Washington Post“Spellbinding . . . You won’t be able to stop reading this book, but when you do finally finish the last delicious page and look up, you will see families in a clearer and more forgiving way.” —Vanity FairWhen eleven-year-old ...

All it took to destroy Andy Nocera's seemingly perfect life was an anonymous tryst at an Interstate rest area. Sentenced to probation and thrown out by his wife, he spends his week as a traveling salesman, and his weekends at his mother's house where no questions are asked--and no explanations are offered.To clear his record, the State of North Carolina requires Andy to complete one year of therapy without another arrest. He attends his sessions reluctantly at first, struggling to ...

Lyv wants a life far removed from her dysfunctional family and the diner they own, especially now that Ten, her best friend and lifeline to normality, is spending a semester in Europe.What she gets is an absent rock-star baby daddy and one helluva choice to make - unless it's ripped from her first.

These poems topics range from hate crimes to playgrounds, from international conflict to hometowns, from falling in love to the desperation of loneliness. Gibsons work seizes us by the collar and hauls us inside some of her darkest moments, then releases us out the other side. 

"Porpora's coming-of-age memoir is a brilliant debut from a fine writer with an intriguing way of viewing the world . . . four stars out of four." — USA TodayEvery autumn, Kenny Porpora would watch his heartbroken mother scribble messages on balloons and release them into the sky above Long Island, one for each family member they'd lost to addiction. As the number of balloons grew, his mother fell deeper into alcoholism, drinking away her ...

“Noah’s voice is more than just honest or original; it’s real.” --The Plain DealerTHE WORLD ACCORDING TO NOAH YORK:*“Anybody who tells you he doesn’t have mixed feelings about his mother is either stupid or a liar.”“Real life seldom makes me cry. The only thing that gets to me is the occasional Kodak commercial.”“Sometimes I feel like Michelangelo, chiseling away at all the crap until nothing is left but the exquisite thing in the m...

This “extraordinary memoir” from a gender non-conforming child of the ‘80s, is “brave and true, as devastating as it is inspiring.” —Joey Soloway, Emmy-award winning creator of TransparentBorn into the beautiful bedlam of downtown New York in the eighties, iO Tillett Wright came of age at the intersection of punk, poverty, heroin, and art. This was a world of self-invented characters, glamorous superstars, and strung-out sufferers, ground zero of drag and ...

Racing Hummingbirds examines critiques and at times delights in one woman's navigation through the many worlds of manic depression and her struggle to maintain humanity in the process. Jeanann Verlee's award-winning debut collection is a series of narratives prayers and conjurings which address gender sex race poverty heartbreak and survival with such stark intimacy you will find yourself living inside. These poems cannot possibly be about you yet they are. They cross boundaries and reclai...

Can one terrible moment change your life forever?“The days and weeks that followed were snapshots in his mind. Cluttered night tables, filled with pill bottles on his mother’s side…” To those on the outside, the Powells are a happy family, but then a devastating accident destroys their fragile façade. When seven year-old Henry is blamed for the tragedy, he tries desperately to make his parents happy again.As Henry grows up, he is full of potential – a talen...

Belly up to the bar for hundreds of jokes, riddles, stories, and one-liners collected from the wonderfully diverse patrons of this Big Apple bartender.When it comes to the finest, the far-outest, and the just plain funniest, the jokes start here—in the saloon capital of the world, New York, New York. Jimmy Pritchard, author and veteran NYC bartender, has heard them all from patrons across the oak. In these comedic cocktails, no one is spared, not the Irish or the e...

These hard-hitting, deeply felt stories follow straight arrows and outlaws, have-it-alls and outcasts, as they take stock of their lives and missteps and struggle to rise above their turbulent pasts. A salesman re-examines his tenuous relationship with his sister after she is brutally attacked. A house painter plans a new life for his family as he plots his last bank robbery. A drifter gets a chance at love when he delivers news of a barfly's death to the man's estranged daughter. A dissat...