Interview by Brett Josef Grubisic Ahmad Danny Ramadan isn’t afraid to challenge readers with The Clothesline Swing, his debut novel. Weaving together fantastic and magical tales with those that are heartbreaking, sobering, drunken, and decadent, Ramadan’s storyteller, an old man residing in...
Brett Josef Grubisic 1. “Nothing.” In answer to my father’s “What are you two doing upstairs?” (Simultaneously, my sister and I had the experience-based intuition that accurate replies—“Reading Vogue,” “Pretending to be Vogue reporters covering catwalk shows,” or “Designing and sewing gowns to...
Brett Josef Grubisic Please note: The following excerpts do not appear consecutively in the novel. Déviation: Aptitude [mks_dropcap style=”letter” size=”52″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]W[/mks_dropcap] ith the exception of...
Brett Josef Grubisic A few years ago I got a mid-afternoon call from a friend. Originally he and I weren’t friends, not exactly; as strangers we’d made contact surreptitiously online and met for quickies on sporadic afternoons, work routines permitting. After a while the camaraderie flourished as...
by Brett Josef Grubisic Howdy Barbara, greetings from the left coast, Such an outpouring of outraged sentiment today in your diatribe against the recognition of Raziel Reid’s so-called “values-void” novel. Most of your words struck me as angry and muddled in equal parts. I can’t help but reply...
Brett Josef Grubisic (Vancouver) “Sure, there’s memorable Christmas reading on my book shelves. For darkly comic, turn to Augusten Burroughs’ You Better Not Cry. And if he’s not exactly Dickens, David Sedaris’ Holidays on Ice is a new classic for a reason. “Better still: Derek...
