Dark Comedy Short Stories

What can one say about the 'jokey' content within these pages? Well, it provides no more than an opportunity for the author to smirk, in a quite mad fashion, and ensure that his readership will continue to bestow solitary heavenly bodies on his foul, pointless conjurings. You see, it's all rather funny... to him.

In these wonderfully funny and poignant stories, Willett’s eccentric, complex characters think and do the unconventional. Soft, euphonic women gradually grow old; weak, unhappy men confront love and their own mortality; and abominable children desperately try to grow up with grace. With a unique voice and dry humor, Willett gives us a new insight into human existence, showing us those specific moments in relationships when life suddenly becomes visible. Critically acclaimed when it was first published, Jenny and the Jaws of Life is being brought back due to popular demand.

Diane Williams, an American master of the short story who will "rewire your brain" (NPR), is back with a collection in which she once again expands the possibilities of fiction. These stories depict ordinary moments - a visit to the doctor's office or a married couple's hundredth dance together - but within the quotidian, Williams delivers a lifetime of insecurities, lusts, rejections, and revelations, making her work equally discomfiting and amusing.

From bourgeois facial-hair trends to parental sleep deprivation, Joseph O’Neill closely observes the mores of his characters, whose vacillations and second thoughts expose the mysterious pettiness, underlying violence, and, sometimes, surprising beauty of ordinary life in the early 21st century. A lonely wedding guest talks to a goose; two poets struggle over whether to participate in a “pardon Edward Snowden” verse petition; a cowardly husband lets his wife face a possible intruder in their home; a potential co-op renter in NYC can’t find anyone to give him a character reference.

When a woman’s fed up there’s hell to pay. When a female demon is fed up? You’d better get the f-ck out the way. Wassup? I’m Xenia, and I’m sick and tired of my mate. And no, he didn’t cheat on me, that’s human crap to get mad at. No, the f-cktard can’t get over the thought of his baby brother one-upping him; and has been neglecting me as a result. Well, an idle mind is a dangerous place, especially when it belongs to an intelligent, female demon. When my father-in-law, the devil himself, gives me a task to wipe out an entire country, I jump on it. Especially when I see just...

In the town of Name Pending, Wyoming, Elijah Potbury does brisk business as the territory's only practicing necromancer. For a reasonable fee, he'll raise any friend or family member. Stories contained in this volume: "The Automatons Who Ate Lead": After convincing Potbury to resurrect two disembodied brains that are to be transplanted into automatons, the diabolical Mr. Seven uses them to kidnap Miss Henrietta. Potbury, with the help of his faithful gun hand, the late Nat McGrue, does everything in his power to thwart the scheming airship owner. "The Hatching of the Wolf Spider": The Wolf ...

In the town of Name Pending, Wyoming, Elijah Potbury does brisk business as the territory's only practicing necromancer. For a reasonable fee, he'll raise any friend or family member. Stories contained in this fourth volume: "The Ravenous Man-Eater": Mr. Seven, owner of the airship Azincourt, assigns Professor Hemplewick the task of creating a many-tentacled, armor-plated monstrosity in the form of a giant slug to work in the engine room of the Azincourt. A reanimated human brain from a freshly deceased corpse is needed to power the creature, for which Seven turns to Potbury. Aware of ...

Olivia Kraevitz may be known as the nosy neighbor, but she prides herself on her ability to gather information. When her eccentric neighbor, Vivian Johnson, stops retrieving her mail, it seems she and her son have vanished. Determined to uncover the truth, Olivia enlists her friends to explore Vivian's house. Brandy Looking, Vivian’s enigmatic caregiver, is an oddball in a neighborhood of eccentrics. Her pale makeup highlights blue dot tattoos on her forehead, connected by an arc between her brows. Brandy despises Olivia’s prying eyes, and soon, Olivia finds herself marked with blue ...

A fast-paced fifty-page short story book about two budding astronauts, a space hound named Chewie and a rather pissed off creature in the form of a Kraken. Contains epic storytelling, dark humor and general silliness.

ROMANCE QUICKIES Discounted Boxed Set, Encounters 7-12 WHO WILL WIN? Seven friends living in New York City. One unusual competition. Who can have the most intimate encounters in a month? Ten thousand dollars is on the line... Quickies are bite-sized steamy stories that follow a group of women living in New York City who compete to see who can have the most casual hookups in a month. Which woman will sleep with the most men to win the bet? Will any of them fall in love with their conquests along the way? These sizzling-hot books can be read as stand-alones or as part of the Quickies series. ...

Eight short stories about art, shadows and self. Creighton's second short story collection introduces us to a gallery owner who worries her husband will leave her for a doppelgänger; an artist whose creativity is blocked by intense fear on a retreat; a would-be writer who opens a PO Box to gather other people's letters to God; two mothers with guilty secrets; a young student contemplating suing a lecturer for boring her into deep slumber; a geologist travelling the earth to find herself; and a woman who flies home to bury her dead uncle, only to end up in a compromising situation. ...

For sheer unpredictable brilliance, Gogol may come to mind, but no author alive today takes a listener as far as Helen DeWitt into the funniest, most yonder dimensions of possibility. Her jumping-off points might be statistics, romance, the art world’s piranha tank, games of chance and games of skill, the travails of publishing, or success.

It was, maybe, the first job I'd ever had where people were happy to see me. An odd feeling indeed, to wield this kind of power. To be this kind of force. As near to magical as any mortal should stride. A technician of unspeakable joy. Braving the neon mountains to return with blue raspberry concentrate. Tearing out sundae cone fangs from the mouths of snow beasts. And so on.

ROMANTIC LIES (BOOK 2) Five years after coming to New York for her cousin Emma's funeral, Abby has it all: the man of her dreams, a well-paying job, and a luxury apartment that she shares with her billionaire boyfriend. Little does she know that Liam has been keeping a secret from her...one that could ruin things forever. When he suddenly ends their relationship without any explanation, Abby's beautiful world comes crashing down. Her best friend, Isabella, gives her a clue that might explain everything, and Abby sets out on a journey to solve the mystery of why Liam left. What she discovers...

When God descends to earth as a Dinka woman from Sudan and subsequently dies in the Darfur desert, the result is a world bizarrely new yet eerily familiar. In Ron Currie's provocative, wise, and emotionally resonant novel we meet God himself; the Dinka woman whose mortality He must suffer when He inhabits her body; people all over the world coping with the devastating news of God's demise.

Rachel Klein never meant to kiss her creative writing professor, but with his long eyelashes, his silky hair, and the sad, beautiful life he laid bare on Twitter, she does, and the kiss is very nice. Zahid Azzam never planned to become a houseguest in his student's sprawling Connecticut home, but with the sparkling swimming pool, the endless supply of Whole Foods strawberries, and Rachel's beautiful mother, he does, and the home is very nice.

A cheerful snack mascot who snaps under the pressure. The nightmarish effects of the most depressing holiday song of all time. A virtual-reality environment that allows you to enact your most depraved fantasies...sort of. Giant mutant cockroaches doing battle with zombies in the Old West. An unnerving discovery in the Book of Revelations. The true secret of silent comedian Buster Keaton's success. Plus a Halloween curse, a lot of psychopaths, and much more!

Ever wondered what it's like to be born into a family of assassins? Gin Bombay knows, and now she's sharing her family's deepest, darkest secrets. The Bombay Family Bedtime Stories continue with My Heroes Have Always Been Hitmen! Four more family stories have been released from the vault, including Rio Bombay, wanna-be cowboy and wild west gunslinger; Caspian, the first Bombay to have to take out another Bombay; Aberdeen, the hoop-skirted Antebellum Assassin; and Dublin Bombay, the Scottish Viking Slayer! History is at its most hilarious as this darkly funny family tells all.

He traded his scythe for a clipboard. What could possibly go wrong? Mort Finley is done with death. After centuries on soul collection duty, he's hanging up the cloak and launching a new career—as a life coach. The kind with business cards, throw pillows, and an ever-wilting office fern. His clients? Burned-out, washed-up, or just plain stuck. But Mort sees their potential... and for the first time, maybe even his own. Of course, transitioning from Reaper to self-help guru isn’t without hiccups—like flickering lights, mysteriously appearing skull décor, and the occasional existential...

Ordinary realities and yearnings to transcend them lead to miraculous other worlds in this dazzling collection of stories. A woman's deceased father appears in her dreams with clues about the afterlife; a Russian professor in a small American town constructs elaborate fantasies during her cigarette break; a man falls in love with a marble statue as his marriage falls apart. With the emotional insight of Chekhov, the surreal satire of Gogol, and a unique blend of humor and poetry all her own, Tolstaya transmutes the quotidian into aetherial alternatives.