From the author of A Patrimony of Fishes, eight darkly comic short stories set in contemporary central California.
Beauty and terror collide in Doug Lawson’s Bigfoots in Paradise, a wild new collection of stories set largely in and around Santa Cruz, California, and the surrounding mountains. It’s a land tucked between Silicon Valley and the Pacific Ocean, one that’s populated by aging hippies and venture capitalist sharks, pot farmers and surfers, child prodigies and roaming herds of wild boar. Earthquakes rumble, meth labs explode, helicopters search overhead for drug farms while wildfires ravage the hillsides. Blimps crash, mushrooms dream, dogfights erupt, trustafarians pontificate while pneumatic ostriches walk the streets and sons and fathers and lovers try desperately to find some way to connect with the past, with themselves, before it’s too late.
Doug plunges headlong into this astonishing country at a fine-tuned, white-knuckled pace that will leave you both gasping for breath and holding your heart in your hands. His characters are awkward, ungainly, and great at hiding and they shamble through the beautiful wilderness of their lives, searching for meaning, searching for themselves.
“Lawson’s taut, graphic prose sparkles. . . . Insightful, stimulating, and unforgettable tales.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Vivid . . . haunting . . . assured and atmospheric.” —Booklist
“Lawson writes with confidence, his prose is lyrical and poetic, and he comfortably blends dark comedy and empathic observations.” —Hunger Mountain
“These stories are wonderful reminders that the line between childhood and adulthood is an ever-fluctuating, utterly fluid, and perhaps completely irrelevant distinction. . . . A very satisfying read.”―Antonya Nelson, author of Funny Once
