Sex and Other Acts of the Imagination

Burns is an unflinchingly dark fantasist, driving his imagination into disturbing realms where nothing is certain and answers are few. Stories of bleak dystopian tragedy such as “Apocalypse Beach” mingle with the unsettling intensity of domestic dramas such as “Invisible Boy” and “The Strange Music.” The humour is dark, the horror worse. These are not fantasies of light and hope, but rather despair (although hope does make an appearance now and then).

Read more at the Redeblog.

A collection of 19 short stories/ prose pieces. Stylistically rather diverse. The cover carries a warning "Stories guaranteed not to be safe" - and, indeed, several passages are not for those with a weak stomach (here I am pointing directly to the final section of "Sex*Tet - The Joy of Necrophilous Bestiality). The central portion of "Teenage Wasteland" was literally intoxicating (I had to look away - I was getting the spins). "Public Enemy" prompted a spontanous reading aloud at a local restaurant provoking a comment ("Very zen") but a desire to refute the narrator's final arbiter of 'reality' with the story of The Blind Men and the Elephant.

Thanks for a good read Cliff!

"A book of hot dreams and frozen nightmares. The people in these stories will stay with me for a long time to come."
-Timothy Findley, Governor-General Award-winning author