Jack's mother is a storyteller, a game-player. On an impulsive trip out to the family lake house, she spins a macabre tale for Jack and his father - a tale that, as the weekend progresses, Jack finds more and more difficult to untangle from his family's real life. Joe Hill is the New York Times bestselling author of NOS4R2, Horns, and Heart-Shaped Box, and the prize-winning story collection 20th Century Ghosts. He is also the co-author, with Stephen King, of In the Tall Grass.

1890. Yamamoto Kiyoki is a Japanese art student, dreaming of studying in Paris with the inspiring and vibrant Impressionist painters. Yamamoto Ryusei is Kiyoki’s father. Ryusei’s art, carving intricate masks for traditional Japanese theater, has been his refuge from loneliness since the death of his beloved wife, and he is revered as the most inspired artist of his kind. He expects his only son to honor the traditions of his family and his country, not to be seduced by Western ideas of what is beautiful. Ryusei hopes Kiyoki will follow his own distinguished career, creating masks that will become the family’s crowning achievement. But what is a father to do when his son’s path is not what he had planned? And how can a son honor his father, and yet fulfill his own destiny? READERS GUIDE INSIDE

A celebration in prose, poetry and photographs of fathers and fatherhood--fathers loved and fathers feared, famous fathers and obscure ones, real-life fathers and fictional ones. 25 black-and-white photographs.

There are several thousand, if not millions of married men who are in the closet today. For the majority of these men, dating, marriage, family and careers have kept them there. Fears of separation from family, loss of friends, and loss of job are those things which cause them to hide behind the mask of heterosexual male. These men had little if no opportunity to explore this after adolescence. Many lived in small towns across the country. They have lived with fear, anxiety and guilt. Many successfully hid it from their wives. Some did not. The evolution of the Internet opened many doors for these men. Statistics prove that coming out usually ends in divorce. Not My Father's Footsteps takes a look at one such journey an odyssey that in less than a year took him from inside the closet to a new life outside. It is a journey of love and torment, and finding love again. It is the story of seedy spas and confinement in the psychiatric ward for a brief time. By going back to his roots, he has been able to come out of his darkness and into the light of being a gay man.

This work examines Stephen King's position in popular literary circles and then considers the contributions of his family to the landscape of contemporary fiction. Though they have to a degree been eclipsed by Stephen King's popularity, his wife, Tabitha King, and sons, Owen King and Joe Hill, have found varying levels of success in their own right. The three have traveled their own writing paths, from supernatural fiction to contemporary literary fiction. This is the first extended exploration of the works of three authors who have too long been overshadowed by their proximity to "the King of Horror."

“We Can Never Leave This Place is the apocalyptic 21st century Grimm's fairy tale you need in your life. Eric LaRocca plucks images directly from the muck and mire of our id and fashions them into something grotesquely beautiful.” ~ Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World and The Pallbearers Club “We Can Never Leave This Place is a bleak and tender, monstrous and visceral fable of family and loss, and the courage it takes to confront them both.” ~ Kathe Koja, author of The Cipher “When you’re given a gift, something else gets taken away.” A precocious young girl with an unusual imagination is sent on an odyssey into the depths of depravity. After her father dies violently, young Mara is surprised to find her mother welcoming a new guest into their home, claiming that he will protect them from the world of devastation and destruction outside their door. A grotesque and thrilling dark fantasy, We Can Never Leave This Place is a harrowing portrait of inherited grief and familial trauma.

There has been an enormous revival of interest in Commedia dell'arte. And it remians a central part of many drama school courses. In Commedia dell'arte in the Twentieth Century John Rublin first examines the orgins of this vital theatrical form and charts its recent revival through the work of companies like Tag, Theatre de Complicite and the influential methods of Jacques Lecoq. The second part of the book provides a unique practical guide for would-be practitioners: demonstrating how to approach the roles of Zanni, Arlecchion, Brighella, Pantalone, Dottore, and the Lovers in terms o.

Skull, the Arion. Skull is one of the last survivors of a race of warriors genetically created to be the perfect weapon of war. The Arions' light blue skin, enhanced strength, cunning, and keen tracking sense makes even one of them a formidable foe for an entire platoon. Talon, the Ariel. Talon is an outcast among his race of benevolent philosophers, the first genetically created race. The Ariels have been given superior intellect, the peak of "human" physical attributes, and wings that carry them even further above normal men. Skull and Talon. Two unconventional men, trying to live up to the legacy of their fathers while finding their place in a clockwork world full of humans and mutants, Skull and Talon struggle to survive in a world built by the uneasy partnership of forgotten magic and late-century science. Partnered by fate, bound by destiny-this is the legend of Skull and Talon.

"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers." In an ancient world divided by colors, where everyone wears masks, superstitions abound, and mysterious creatures called the Harlequins exist... Here, a clever teen of the Black Chromes named Asheva loses everything he's ever known and embarks on a treacherous and exciting journey that takes him through the wild forests of the Black Nation to the vast plains of Ayas, a Blue Chrome city of astounding beauty, where further danger lies. But the journey will also result in an astounding truth, when Asheva ultimately discovers that beneath the masks all Chromes wear, nothing is what it seems.

An intimate, lyrical look at the ancient rite of the Irish wake--and the Irish way of overcoming our fear of death Death is a whisper for most of us. Instinctively we feel we should dim the lights, pull the curtains, and speak softly. But on a remote island off the coast of Ireland's County Mayo, death has a louder voice. Each day, along with reports of incoming Atlantic storms, the local radio runs a daily roll call of the recently departed. The islanders go in great numbers, young and old alike, to be with their dead. They keep vigil with the corpse and the bereaved company through the long hours of the night. They dig the grave with their own hands and carry the coffin on their own shoulders. The islanders cherish the dead--and amid the sorrow, they celebrate life, too. In My Father's Wake, acclaimed author and award-winning filmmaker Kevin Toolis unforgettably describes his own father's wake and explores the wider history and significance of this ancient and eternal Irish ritual. Perhaps we, too, can all find a better way to deal with our mortality -- by living and loving as the Irish do.