The Last Shot — Leon Rooke

From one of Canada''s most compelling and imaginative writers of short fiction comes a new collection of eleven stories and a novella.

With stories both magical and unexpected, Leon Rooke astounds with his approach to the art of storytelling.

From the novella about the surreal adventures of Prissy Thibidault in the deep south watching alligator wrestling while white racists turn into blacks; to stories that include the strange wanderings of a boy called Dark in search of his mother; the escape of a couple of gay friends from their respective relationships for the bright lights of Paris; the negotiations with J.D. Salinger for a bag of his garbage; the torment that six-year-old twins inflict on their blind grandfather while their absent mother gives a boyfriend one last shot at romance; the unemployed man who helps to exterminate mosquitoes pleads his case before a judge about the capriciousness of his life; the painter who ruminates on magic dogs, reluctant models, and living with his ornery old father; the novice writer who hilariously tries to follow a how-to-manual; the survivor of a shut-in family who manages to burrow out of his suffocating lot; to a most unusual bank robbery that saves a woman''s life; here are fictional inventions that dazzle and engage.

Writing within the aesthetic of magic realism, Rooke writes like a jazz musician, improvising and surprising with every sentence. Hailed by Russell Banks as ""a North American treasure,"" Leon Rooke is surely Canada''s literary answer to the jazz great Miles Davis.