Recent publications from dooneyscafe.com writers:

Locomotive, Walter Hourback

Are we finished at 65? Some of us are tired, defeated, bored. But what if life isn't finished with us?

Locomotive is an account of what happens to a man of 65 when, after twenty years of marriage to a "younger woman" he has to face a divorce he didn't see coming and doesn't welcome.

In a culture that doesn't want heterosexual males to do anything other than tug their forelocks, Walter Hourback's sometimes raw account is worth paying attention to. He has provided a unique survival manual loaded with common sense, one which strangles self-pity each time it raises its head to strike with the recognition that the human condition is, when all is said and done, governed by the dark rules of slapstick.

Walter Hourback (1949-2017) lived the first and last parts of his life in North Bay, Ontario. He was a sometimes contributor to the online news service dooneyscafe.com. This is his only full-length book.

Locomotive is the second in a series of publications from Time/Sensitive Publications, a joint venture between David Mason Books and dooneyscafe.com. It is available only through David Mason Books, 366 Adelaide Street W. Toronto, ON, M5V 1R9. The book has been edited by Brian Fawcett, who also provides an introduction.

Locomotive was printed July 2020 at Coach House press in a limited edition of 300. Price $50 includes postage.

Book cover, Locomotive by Wallter Hourback
No One by George Bowering

No One, by George Bowering

A risqué autobiographical novel that fictionalizes the sexual adventures of the author’s youth

In 2012, acclaimed writer George Bowering published Pinboy, a fictional memoir of his teenage sexual awakening. With No One, Bowering returns to play with form and fact in this autobiographical novel that continues the narrator’s journey in a quest story full of further sexual awakenings as that Pinboy becomes a man.

A writer called “alert, playful, and questioning” by The Globe and Mail, Bowering infuses this work with sexual politics, romantic and social developments, and a backdrop of ancient themes of homesickness and captivity. Readers may delight in the details of the retelling or perhaps they will be browned off. There are no guarantees. The ending will be a pleasant surprise for readers, patient and otherwise.

Available from ECW Press, and popular retailers.

Let's Keep Doing This- Writings in Honour of Stan Persky

Let’s Keep Doing This: Writings in Honour of Stan Persky, edited by Thomas Marquard and Brian Fawcett, is a lively and affectionate anthology celebrating the work of writer, teacher, and activist in the public forum, Stan Persky.

Persky is the author of some two dozen books, including Buddy’s: Meditations on Desire (1989), The Short Version: An ABC Book (2005), Reading the 21st Century (2011), Post-Communist Stories (2014) and Letter from Berlin (2017). He was born in Chicago, 1941; served in the U.S. Navy near Naples, Italy; was part of the New American Poetry movement in San Francisco; taught philosophy at Capilano University in North Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada) for three decades; and is currently based in Berlin, Germany.

Available on Amazon in both Kindle and print formats.

Let's Keep Doing This- Writings in Honour of Stan Persky
Letter from Berlin by Stan Persky

Letter from Berlin: Essays 2015-2016 by Stan Persky

Nearly a century ago, in the wake of global conflict, the Irish poet W.B. Yeats worried that “the centre cannot hold” in a world where “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.” Stan Persky’s Letter from Berlin, dispatches written from the reconfigured centre of Post-Cold War Europe, presents a portrait of the political and cultural present that examines those faltering convictions and dangerously passionate intensities.  The essays offer a spirited cultural defense of the imperilled “centre” through portraits of key 20th century writers and thinkers, such as Susan Sontag, Federico Garcia Lorca, and Albert Camus.

Stan Persky taught philosophy and politics at Capilano University, near Vancouver, Canada, and is the author of more than 20 books, including most recently Reading the 21st Century and Post-Communist Stories. He lives in Berlin.

Available on Amazon in both Kindle and print formats.