Fiction. Gathered here together are 22 of Garrett Socol's finely-crafted stories, by turns darkly humorous and light and zany, and often both at once. The characters populating these stories march slightly out-of-step with the world around them: a dentist, his hygienist, and their illicit flossing, a writer who publishes her own suicide handbook, a woman selling baked goods for electroshock therapy. In this collection, Socol brings his wry insight and sensitivity to bear on the madness of contemporary culture, the silliness of everyday life, and illustrates the many ways people, against all odds, keep themselves afloat.

Author City: LOS ANGELES, CA USA

Garrett Socol, a native New Yorker, currently resides in Los Angeles. His first life was lived as Gary Socol, and he was a television producer. Gary created and produced Talk Soup (host, Greg Kinnear) and The Gossip Show among other series for E!. His first play, The Shadow of Greatness, premiered at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in 2000, starring Richard Chamberlain. His second play, Bicoastal Woman, enjoyed a successful run at the Pasadena Playhouse. His second life began in 2007 when he left television and began writing fiction. His short stories have been published in dozens of literary journals including PANK, Perigee, Pear Noir, The Barcelona Review, The Dublin Quarterly, Underground Voices, > kill author, 3:AM Magazine, Hobart, Drunken Boat, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

Reviews and Other Links
author site
Mel Bosworth @ Outside Writers Collective
Kirsten McIlvenna @ NewPages