Joe Meno

The Boy Detective Fails (Punk Planet Books)

From the best-selling author Joe Meno, a moving novel about the impossibility of fate and family “Meno knows how to make you love his characters, want what they want. But don’t think he’s going to let things turn out well for them.” —New York Times Book Review “I don’t know how Joe Meno does it—if I did know, I’d copy him. This book has such velocity that it generates wind, yet it is meditative and steeped in love, music, and human connection. It’s stunning.” —Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels “Set on Chicago’s southside, this is a quirky, tender, and absurdly funny coming-of-age novel about not only caring for the ones we love, but also tending to the dreams they have for our future. It’s a novel about work and the relentless grind of surviving paycheck to paycheck. Joe Meno writes beautifully of the way tragic stories become a kind of inheritance in this bittersweet love letter to the immigrants who built Chicago.” —Leigh Stein, author of Self Care Aleksandar and Isobel are siblings and former classical music prodigies, once destined for greatness. As the only Eastern European family growing up on their block on the far southside of Chicago, the pair were inseparable until each was forced to confront the absurdity of tragedy at an early age and abandon their musical ambitions. Now in their twenties, they find themselves encountering ridiculous jobs, unfulfilling romantic relationships, and the outrageousness of ordinary life. Doomed by fate, a family history of failure, an odd mother, an absent father, and a younger brother with a peculiar fondness for catastrophes, the two siblings have all but given up. But when an illness forces Isobel and her three-year-old daughter to move back into the family home, Aleks becomes deeply involved in the endless challenges that surround his relatives. Once Isobel begins playing cello again, Aleks comes to see a world of possibility and wonder in the lives of his extraordinarily complicated family. Told in Aleks’s exuberant voice, and full of as much comedy as tragedy, this entertaining novel asks, Is it ever truly possible to separate our fates from those we’ve come to love?

Book of Extraordinary Tragedies

From the author of Between Everything and Nothing, “an inspired collection of twenty stories, brilliant in its command of tone and narrative perspective” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Demons in the Spring is a collection of twenty short stories by Joe Meno, author of the smash hits The Boy Detective Fails and Hairstyles of the Damned, with illustrations by twenty artists from the fine art, graphic art, and comic book worlds—Todd Baxter, Kelsey Brookes, Ivan Brunetti, Charles Burns, Nick Butcher, Steph Davidson, Evan Hecox, Kim Hiorthoy, Paul Hornschemeier, Cody Hudson, Caroline Hwang, kozyndan, Geoff McFetridge, Anders Nilsen, Laura Owens, Archer Prewitt, Jon Resh, Jay Ryan, Souther Salazar, Rachell Sumpter, and Chris Uphues. In these stories, oddly modern moments occur in the most familiar of public places—from offices to airports to schools to zoos to emergency rooms. A young girl refuses to go anywhere unless she’s dressed as a ghost. A bank robbery in Stockholm goes terribly wrong. A teacher becomes enamored with the students in his school’s Model United Nations club. A couple is affected by a strange malady. A miniature city begins to develop in a young woman’s chest. These inventive stories are hilarious, heartbreaking, and unusual. A portion of the author’s proceeds from the book will go directly to benefit 826 CHICAGO, a nonprofit tutoring center, part of the national organization of tutoring centers with branches in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, and Seattle. Finalist for the 2008 Story Prize Time Out Chicago Best Books of 2008 Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2008 “This short story collection succeeds word to word, sentence to sentence, and cover to cover.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Stories

Demons in the Spring

Brian Oswald and his best friend, Gretchen, get involved in the punk scene on Chicago's south side, experimenting with drugs, drinking and relationships and aligning themselves with various outcast groups in order to fit in.

Joe Meno

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