EMMETT GROGAN
Author of TWELVE STORIES
and DIFFERENT TIMES (new novel!)
TWELVE STORIES
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Episodes in the life of a lifelong con artist, this is The Catcher in the Rye
as told by a teenage thief. A teenage thief from Nipigon, Ontario, who comes
of age witnessing death in a small town; who puts his high school bully in
a wheelchair; who drinks away his youth; who lies, cheats, and steals his way
out of poverty, scamming his way to the bottom rung of the Canadian
contemporary art market in the 1990s.
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But the education of a petty criminal has left a few gaps in his memory…
behind every funny story, there are dark secrets…as Emmett Grogan unearths
the pivotal moment of his childhood while helping a high school drinking buddy
dig up the release date of the first Star Wars movie at their hometown cinema,
back in the 1970s.
Unflinchingly honest, by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, the full arc of
a quiet, desperate life is captured here, in this nuanced, meticulously crafted
novel of interlocking stories.
DIFFERENT TIMES
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Told in episodes, each chapter of Different Times is a key moment in
the education of a teenage rebel, featuring the small-town villains and heroes that individually influence our narrator’s coming-of-age as a youth in mid-1980s Northwestern Ontario.
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Fisher Sheffield. The Cosmopolitanos. Mr. Turtlebraid. Enoch Duke.
Reverend Billy Mitchell. Doug Gardner. Officer McCluskey. Jimmy Joseph.
Mel Famey. Harvey. Dozer. Lord Zechner. These are a few of the iconic characters
that you will meet in the pages of Different Times.
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So grab a peanut butter sandwich, and head to the cigarette vending machine
in the high school lobby. Even if you never took a typing class, or collected pennies
in a UNICEF box, this novel is for you. But if you remember the lingerie section of
the Sears Christmas Wish Book, or hitch-hiking down to the Brewers Retail
to return a case of empties, this novel is definitely for you!
APPEARANCES ACROSS ALL FORMS OF MEDIA:
RADIO: Interview with Jamie Tennant on the "Get Lit" podcast
VIDEO: Presentation at Norfolk County Public Library
PRINT: Interview with Oxford University campus newspaper
SOCIAL MEDIA: Book Club Q & A with Kamloops Public Library
TELEVISION: 1972 Game Show Appearance on "To Tell the Truth"
INTERNET: Book reviews, author profile, and more on GOODREADS
VOICE, FACE, and TRUE IDENTITY, but never all three at once!
"Emmett Grogan writes about the gritty underside of small-town life with such realism that it feels like memoir not fiction. He knows how to write dark and beautiful sentences, and skillfully deploys humour to soften the often harsh edges of his characters' lives. Balancing the light and the dark so well is no easy achievement. With Twelve Stories, Grogan is a storyteller to watch."
Terry Fallis, two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour
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"Emmett Grogan's Twelve Stories is by turns heart-scalding and laugh out-loud funny -- sometimes on the same page. His tales are as true to Canadian boyhood as a tree fort, as faithful to Northern Ontario as a bass strike, snowplough or bush party. An impressive debut by an author who deftly plumbs the wide-open spaces and straitened economic prospects of hinterland life, and the human genius for enjoying the former and defying the latter."
Jim Coyle, retired former Toronto Star journalist and four-time National Newspaper Award nominee