Fiction. Asian American Studies. A quirky, deadpan look at fetish, violence, and family. Thaddeus Rutkowski's novel in short vignettes, gives a harrowingly deadpan account of the tedium, casual violence, and deviant sex lacing together a surreal, semi-rural childhood with adult urban neurosis. In a spare, flat, and unrelenting prose that has been honed to a point, Rutkowski ferrets out the hard bone of absurdity and humor at the center of emotional displacement.

"My favorite moment was a crafted jewel, as tight and nuanced a 123-word story as you're likely to find anywhere."—Nerve Magazine

"Rutkowski's tale chronicles the confusion and opacity of traumatic childhood as it criticizes the American society that tolerates such inhumanity."—Publishers Weekly

Author City: NEW YORK, NY USA

Thaddeus Rutkowski grew up in central Pennsylvania and lives in Manhattan with his wife and daughter. The author of the novels HAYWIRE (Starcherone Books, 2010), ROUGHHOUSE (Kaya Press, 1999) and Tetched (Behler Publications, 2005), he teaches fiction writing at the Writer's Voice of the West Side YMCA in New York and has taught at Pace University, the Hudson Valley Writers Center and the Asian American Writers Workshop. He has been the fiction editor of MANY MOUNTAINS MOVING magazine since 2007.

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