Dark Humor Satire

Set at the fag-end of the 60s at the moment when Swinging London is starting to take on a darker hue in the wake of Charles Manson's murders, and framed as a novel within a novel published by a seedy Piccadilly-based publisher of pulp fiction, Man-Eating Typewriter is a homage to the great oulipo experiments in fiction. It is the story of a psychopath called Raymond Novak and his untimely demise told entirely in 'polari' - a language developed and used mainly amongst the metropolitan homosexual community in the time when being gay was still a criminal offence.

The centre of the world: 1990s Manhattan. Victor Ward, a model with perfect abs and all the right friends, is seen and photographed everywhere, even in places he hasn’t been and with people he doesn’t know. On the eve of opening the trendiest nightclub in New York history, he’s living with one beautiful model and having an affair with another. Now it’s time to move to the next stage. But the future he gets is not the one he had in mind.

When her husband John, the love of her life, passed away, Mabel Dixon felt as though her life was over. Now, thirteen months later, she has sold their house, purchased an apartment, and has reluctantly opened a new chapter in her life at what was promised to be the ultimate in senior living. Still grieving, hopelessly depressed, and surrounded by old people, Mabel is trying to come to terms with aging and her new environment when she is befriended by Gladys Sorensen, who might just be the craziest old lady she has ever met. Through their newfound friendship, Mabel gradually begins to ...

Beautiful, innocent, and generous to a fault, young Candy is thrust into an outrageous world of debauched lechers and dirty old men. Can she close the gap between people by giving fully and satisfying their sizeable needs? Come with Candy on her hilarious misadventures in this raunchy, irreverent, and wildly funny satire of pornography.

Holly Banks could not have made a worse first impression on the seemingly perfect moms in her new affluent community, the Village of Primm. Turns out wearing pink piggy pajama bottoms while dropping off her kindergartener late to the first day of school wasn’t her best look.

Barry just wanted to get through life. Working a useless job by day, drinking at a forgotten bar by night. It was a miserable cycle, but one he grew attached to over time. Then Barry died.

Lady Blake was convinced that the mere thought of aging was more terrifying than any horror scene she had ever witnessed. Every wrinkle, every gray hair, every achy joint felt like a countdown to the end of her youth. One day, as she sat in her fancy dressing room, surrounded by expensive anti-aging creams and potions, Lady Blake couldn't help but let out a dramatic sigh..."I've got wrinkles!" Thus, the idea to keep her youthful appearance became an obsession, with Lady Blake thinking of various ways to preserve her fleeting beauty. However, despite her fears of losing her looks, Lady Blake...

‘A masterpiece. It’s like Jim Thompson and Irvine Welsh got together to write a Tony Black story’ BARRY GRAHAM When young Scots carpenter Joe is visited by the Wing Wizard Davie Cooper one Christmas Eve he gets the shock of his life—his partner is to give birth to a king that very night. Setting off through their scheme—guided only by an unusual, yet familiar, constellation—Joe and Mary-doll soon discover their shared passion for the opposing ends of the Scottish football terraces unites them in ways they could never have imagined. The Holy Father is a novelette delving into the...

This book is part of Apocalypse Then and Now: Collected Works 1980-2020, which contains ten of Charles Ortleb's books. This first collection of short stories by Charles Ortleb captures gay life and gay culture at the end of the twentieth century with a unique, irreverent kind of humor and satire that has never been seen before. Three of the stories were the basis for the provocative film, "The Last Lovers on Earth" which is available on DVD and can be watched online. John Lauritsen praised the collection: "Beautifully written, wildly imaginative fables, which puncture a great many sacred ...

Evoking such classics as Elmer Gantry and The Day of the Locust, William Giraldi's About Face boldly transfers the perennial literary themes of celebrity, ambition, and obsession to twenty-first-century Boston. There we meet Val Face, a charismatic self-help guru who captivates multitudes with his uncanny ability to heal adherents using only the power of his words, the mysterious touch of his hands, and the transcendent beauty of his face.

Who Offed Santa? Someone's been naughty and taken out Santa, but the gals at The Lucky Dill Deli aren't standing for it. Josie is the owner and her two long time friends, Verny and Cookie, work alongside her. Their little New England town is ripe with charm, but when Santa is discovered dead at the Winter Wonderland festival, everyone's on high alert.Enter Abel and Gideon, the new detective in town and the more seasoned one, respectively. Gideon worked on the force with Josie's dad, who died in service to his community. While Gideon would prefer the girls let the police handle the action, ...

A quaint English town, a body, and a headline that reads: “Citizens of Delby Rish Not Safe In Their Beds. Police Clueless.” The latest case for Detective Inspector Andrew Manson and his pathologically stylish partner, Detective Eric Steinway, has more twists than a contortionist at a Delby Rish parish fete. Juggling a homicidal wife on fertility treatment and the unwelcomed advances of the local pathologist’s lovely assistant, Manson must bring this crime and his domestic affairs to a speedy resolution. Because if this case doesn’t kill him, there’s a very good chance his wife will.

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.

The day after an epically hideous and embarrassing disaster, Allison comes to school transformed. Suddenly she's sporting a cute new hairstyle, and she has all the right answers in class. With the help of a strangely wise freshman boy, Jane discovers the unbelievable truth behind the drastic change: Allison has sold her soul to the devil. Now it's up to Jane to put it all on the line to save her friend - without losing her own soul in the process.

To satisfy a public that longs for a savior, Vidal’s eponymous hero of Kalki, born and bred in America’s Midwest, establishes himself in Nepal, puts out the word that he is the last incarnation of the god Vishnu, and predicts an imminent apocalypse meant to cleanse the planet.

More preoccupied with drinking, sleeping, and writing, an unnamed student neglects his studies and invents three separate openings for a novel. The first introduces the Pooka MacPhellimey, "a member of the devil class", the second involves Mr. John Furriskey, a character belonging to another of the student's creations (writer Dermot Trellis), while the final opening features legendary Irish heroes Finn Mac Cool and Mad King Sweeny. Soon, Trellis' creations rebel against him, doing as they like while he sleeps, and the characters begin wandering in and out of each other's tales.

Book Three of the Surviving Myself Trilogy Evan Merrick was never supposed to be the face of a movement. Before the collapse, he sold millions of survival books after a near-miss disaster—books full of borrowed advice and duct-taped wisdom. Then the real world-ending event happened, and Evan had no choice but to follow his own instructions... and realize he had no idea what he was doing. Now, in the aftermath of his accidental leadership, Evan faces a new kind of threat: erasure. The Concord isn’t attacking—they’re removing him from the narrative entirely. Routes close. Supplies ...

Yvette Tyson is making a run for the governor’s office. Her goal is clear. Win. She has the backing of her boyfriend, Cory Logan. He is kind, gentle, and determined— and offers the kind of support an unmarried black woman needs to get into office. Their relationship has grown over the past year, and she had been seen arm-in-arm with him in public numerous times. She is proud to show him off, and him, her—so there is no color issue—or is that exactly what it is? Does Cory need a black governor to get a sports center named after him? Does Yvette need a white boyfriend to win that ...

A hilarious, wildly erotic, and biting satire of Hollywood, Blue Movie tells the story of King B., an Oscar-winning director who's determined to shoot the dirtiest and most expensive X-rated movie ever made; Sid Krassman, a producer who's made a fortune catering to the tastes of the American public, and Angela Sterling, a misunderstood sex symbol who'd give anything (and everything) for a chance to do something "serious."

The year is 2023, and things are bad—bad, but still not as bad as they could be. Hestia Harris is forty-two, abandoned by her husband (he left to fight for the Union cause), and estranged from her parents (they’re leaving for the Confederacy). Yes, the United States has collapsed into a second civil war and again it’s Unionists against Confederates, children against parents, friends against friends.