Cosmo

Winner of the 2013 CBC Overlookie Bookie Award for Most Underrated Canadian Book "These stories read like collaborations between Stephen King and TMZ with Borges and Nabokov on the edits. Each short story sounds with the thunder of a novel. Enthralling, dark, gut-busting stuff!"—Jeff Parker Actor Matthew McConaughey descends into a surreal desert of the soul, an admirer of Miley Cyrus performs a three thousand-word sentence in defense of his passion, an aging porn star dons a dinosaur costume to film the sex scene of a lifetime, and Leonard Cohen shills for Subway: these mercurial and wildly varied stories explode the conventions of short fiction. Spencer Gordon is the co-editor of the online journal The Puritan and the micro-press Ferno House. Cosmo is his first book. If reading most short story collections is like canoeing gently down a tranquil and picturesque river, then reading Spencer Gordon's Cosmo is like riding a jetski over Niagara Falls with Leonard Cohen whispering in your ear. You'll join Matthew McConaughey as he drives naked across the desert in a surreal dark night of the soul. You'll meet a young wrestling fan half-nelsoned by circumstances and a sister's best intentions. You'll hear a Miley Cyrus admirer defend his passion in a 3,000-word sentence. You'll watch an aging porn star don a grotesque dinosaur costume to film the sex scene of his life. Through ten incendiary and mercurial stories, Cosmo will take you on a wild ride over the churning waters of pop culture and the malaise of our solitary existence.

"These stories read like collaborations between Stephen King and TMZ with Borges and Nabokov on the edits. Each short story sounds with the thunder of a novel. Enthralling, dark, gut-busting stuff!"—Jeff Parker

Actor Matthew McConaughey descends into a surreal desert of the soul, an admirer of Miley Cyrus performs a three thousand-word sentence in defense of his passion, an aging porn star dons a dinosaur costume to film the sex scene of a lifetime, and Leonard Cohen shills for Subway: these mercurial and wildly varied stories explode the conventions of short fiction.

Spencer Gordon is the co-editor of the online journal The Puritan and the micro-press Ferno House. Cosmo is his first book.

Albert Camus meets Chamillionaire in these incendiary pop-culture-infused stories.