A collection of short stories where the humour runs dark and the slipstream bubbles up.
...imagine if Raymond Carver called up George Saunders and Joe Lansdale, and they all went drinking with Neil Gaiman.
Correction Line
A novel by Craig Terlson
If not for the sharp curves of prairie correction lines, grid roads would converge into one point. When encyclopedia salesman Roy Blake meets Lucy, an ex-palmist living in a secluded house, he hits a different sort of curve. After a failed sales visit, Roy returns to find the house trashed and her dog tied up in the basement. Just as he discovers a shelf of glowing mason jars, two men carrying shotguns arrive and start smashing furniture upstairs. Before the men can flush him out of the basement, a chemically induced explosion levels the house and Roy barely escapes. Lucy pulls Roy into a world of bowling hustlers, Cuba-loving assassins, strange healing liquids, and guys that take baseball way too seriously. Curve balls meet curved roads, and Roy hits a correction line that will drive him toward a man who controls an entirely different salesforce.
“… it's clear that Terlson is way ahead of the curve in terms of crafting an engaging premise that reaches for elevated territory and reinvents enduring archetypes of action and suspense.” J. Schoenfelder
