EMMETT GROGAN
Author of TWELVE STORIES
and DIFFERENT TIMES (new novel!)
​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.​ 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.
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.
​
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
will meet in the pages of Different Times.
​
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
​
"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