Strange doings were afoot at The Mountain Bar last Sunday evening as a host of ghoulish half-dead hipsters shuffled down to Chinatown to celebrate the release of Todd Taylor's debut novel Shirley Wins. Candy corn + cake = soft corn.
It's okay, Todd Dills, don't be scared. Just read your excellent new novel Sons of the Rapture.
See? Rapture.
That's Liz Ohanesian. She knows the rapture that is Morrissey. And she's not even Mexican.
Neither is Joe Meno, but he kept the crowd enthralled with his tale of how the Boy Detective came to detect from his latest novel The Boy Detective Fails.
Failure is not in Todd Taylor's lexicon. His punk rock zine has been coming out like clockwork every two months for almost six years, making him the hardest working man in letters I know. Shirley Wins is his first novel. It's not made of cake. It's not made of candy corn. It's made of blood and sweat and tears.
But it sure is sweet.
See you December 3, 2006.