<div>In this &ldquo;charming&rdquo; and melancholic novel, a former child sleuth &ldquo;investigates the hard-to-crack case of Lost Innocence&rdquo; (Entertainment Weekly). A Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist Book of the Year In the twilight of a mysterious childhood full of wonder, Billy Argo, boy detective, is brokenhearted to find that his younger sister and crime-solving partner, Caroline, has committed suicide. Ten years later, Billy, age thirty, returns from an extended stay at St. Vitus&rsquo; Hospital for the Mentally Ill to discover the world full of unimaginable strangeness: office buildings vanish without reason, small animals turn up without their heads, and cruel villains ride city buses to complete their evil schemes. Lost within this unwelcoming place, Billy befriends two lonely, extraordinary children&mdash;one a science fair genius, the other a charming, silent bully. With a nearly forgotten bravery, he experiences the unendurable boredom of a telemarketing job; encounters a beautiful, desperate pickpocket; and confronts the nearly impossible solution to his sister&rsquo;s case. Along a path laden with hidden clues and codes, the boy detective may learn the greatest secret of all: the necessity of the unknown. &ldquo;Haunted by the mystery of his sister&rsquo;s death and feeling that a lapse in his sleuthing may be to blame, Billy is determined to find out the reason for her suicide and to punish those responsible . . . The story of Billy&rsquo;s search for truth, love and redemption is surprising and absorbing. Swaddled in melancholy and gentle humor, it builds in power as the clues pile up.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly &ldquo;The author gives Billy a gallery of rogues to combat and even sends him to investigate the Convocation of Evil at a local hotel (&lsquo;Featured Panel: To Wear a Mask?&rsquo;). Meno sets himself a complicated task, marooning his straight-arrow, pulp-fiction protagonist in a world uglier than the Bobbsey Twins ever faced but refusing to go for satire. Instead, the author takes his compulsive investigator at face value.&rdquo; &mdash;Kirkus Reviews, starred review &ldquo;Comedic, imaginative, empathic . . . investigates the precincts of grief [and] our longing to combat chaos with reason.&rdquo; &mdash;Booklist</div>

The Boy Detective Fails

<div>This quirky tale of two young artists in love in 1990s Chicago is &ldquo;a gorgeous little indie romance . . . A sweetheart of a novel&rdquo; (Kirkus Reviews). In the last year of the twentieth century, Odile is a lovely twenty-three-year-old art-school dropout, a minor vandal, and a hopeless dreamer. Jack is a twenty-five-year-old shirker who&rsquo;s most happy capturing the endless noises of the city on his out-of-date tape recorder. Together they decide to start their own art movement, in defiance of a contemporary culture made dull by both the tedious and the obvious. Set just before the end of one world and the beginning of another, this is the story of two people trying to capture a moment in the face of an uncertain future. Named a Best Book of the Year by Daily Candy and chosen as a favorite fiction work of the year in The Believer&rsquo;s readers&rsquo; poll, Office Girl &ldquo;reads as a parody of art-school types . . . and as a tribute to their devil-may-care spirit&rdquo; (The New York Times Book Review). &ldquo;Mr. Meno excels at capturing the way that budding love can make two people feel brave and freshly alive to their surroundings . . . The story of the relationship has a sweet simplicity.&rdquo; &mdash;The Wall Street Journal &ldquo;Meno&rsquo;s tender, hip, funny, and imaginative portrayal of two Chicago misfits . . . dramatizes that anguished and awkward passage between legal age and actual adulthood.&rdquo; &mdash;Booklist Features black-and-white illustrations by artist Cody Hudson and photographs by Todd Baxter.</div>

Office Girl

<div>A boy and his grandfather hunt for a stolen horse in this novel &ldquo;evoking William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy&rdquo; (Booklist). Longlisted for the American Library Association&rsquo;s Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction In the summer of 1995, Jim Falls, a Korean War vet, struggles to raise his sixteen-year-old mixed-race grandson, Quentin, on a farm in southern Indiana. In July, they receive a mysterious gift&mdash;a beautiful quarter horse&mdash;which upends the balance of their difficult lives. The horse&rsquo;s appearance catches the attention of a pair of troubled, meth-dealing brothers and, after a violent altercation, the horse is stolen and sold. Grandfather and grandson must travel the landscape of the bleak heartland to reclaim the animal and to confront the ruthless party that has taken possession of it. Along the way, both will be forced to face the misperceptions and tragedies of their past. &ldquo;A vivid portrait of Heartland America . . . I&rsquo;ve long been an admirer of Joe Meno&rsquo;s work, and this is his most ambitious book yet.&rdquo; &mdash;Dan Chaon, New York Times&ndash;bestselling author of Ill Will &ldquo;[Meno] has a knack for giving small happenings emotional weight. . . . Meno knows how to make you love his characters, want what they want. But don&rsquo;t think he&rsquo;s going to let things turn out well for them. Marvels and wonders aren&rsquo;t worth the trouble. Fortunately, this book is.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times Book Review &ldquo;It&rsquo;s at once a story about two people and an exploration of the past, present, and future of the country. . . . As the fate of the horse, of Jim Falls, of Quentin&mdash;of America!&mdash;becomes more perilous, the book picks up speed. The story is operating on different levels&mdash;as a family story, an epic, and in the end a page-turner&mdash;but they remain skillfully balanced.&rdquo; &mdash;Chicago Reader &ldquo;A wise and touching novel of love, loyalty, courage; an extraordinary book not to be missed.&rdquo; &mdash;Library Journal</div>

Marvel and a Wonder

<div>From the award-winning author of The Boy Detective Fails: A novel of two brothers growing up on the other side of the tracks. &ldquo;A trailer park in the Plains town of Tenderloin is the setting of this crusty coming-of-age debut, which features some of the liveliest characters just this side of believable that one is apt to meet in a contemporary novel. The first-person narrator is a moral but susceptible eleven-year-old called Dough, who lusts after his fifth-grade teacher and idolizes his trouble-making older brother, Pill-Bug. The boys, who are new to the town and shamed by the stigma of living in a trailer, were named by a father who wanted them to remain tough and who ended up dying while smuggling cigarettes along a Texas highway. Their mother and her new boyfriend, French, are low-life swingers, allowing the siblings to spend nights with Val, who entertains a slew of men but whom Dough worships as a virginal Madonna. Dough&rsquo;s own adoring friend is Lottie, a slightly deranged girl who offers Dough a gift of one of her taxidermist father&rsquo;s specimens; meanwhile, Pill-Bug earns a special affection from Lunna, a high school floozy. Each character is vividly described . . . Meno&rsquo;s passionate new voice makes him a writer to watch.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly</div>

Tender As Hellfire

<div>A haunted ex-con returns to his hometown: &ldquo;Fans of hard-boiled pulp fiction will particularly enjoy this novel&rdquo; (Booklist). Luce Lemay is out on parole three years after an awful tragedy sent him to prison. In his small Illinois town, he does his best to find hope: in a new job at the local Gas-N-Go; in his companion and fellow ex-con, Junior Breen, who spells out puzzling messages to the unquiet ghosts of his past; and finally, in the arms of the lovely but reckless Charlene. But sorrow and violence lie in his path, in this suspenseful exploration of a country bright with the far-off stars of forgiveness and dark with the still-looming shadow of the death penalty. &ldquo;A wonderful accomplishment . . . The power is in the writing. Mr. Meno is a superb craftsman.&rdquo; &mdash;Hubert Selby Jr., bestselling author of Last Exit to Brooklyn &ldquo;The author moves the story along at a surprisingly fast and easy pace.&rdquo; &mdash;Kirkus Reviews &ldquo;Moving . . . Meno has a poet&rsquo;s feel for small-town details, life in the joint and the trials an ex-con faces, and he&rsquo;s a natural storyteller with a talent for characterization.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly</div>

How the Hula Girl Sings

<div>From the author of Between Everything and Nothing, “an inspired collection of twenty stories, brilliant in its command of tone and narrative perspective” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Demons in the Spring is a collection of twenty short stories by Joe Meno, author of the smash hits The Boy Detective Fails and Hairstyles of the Damned, with illustrations by twenty artists from the fine art, graphic art, and comic book worlds—Todd Baxter, Kelsey Brookes, Ivan Brunetti, Charles Burns, Nick Butcher, Steph Davidson, Evan Hecox, Kim Hiorthoy, Paul Hornschemeier, Cody Hudson, Caroline Hwang, kozyndan, Geoff McFetridge, Anders Nilsen, Laura Owens, Archer Prewitt, Jon Resh, Jay Ryan, Souther Salazar, Rachell Sumpter, and Chris Uphues. In these stories, oddly modern moments occur in the most familiar of public places—from offices to airports to schools to zoos to emergency rooms. A young girl refuses to go anywhere unless she’s dressed as a ghost. A bank robbery in Stockholm goes terribly wrong. A teacher becomes enamored with the students in his school’s Model United Nations club. A couple is affected by a strange malady. A miniature city begins to develop in a young woman’s chest. These inventive stories are hilarious, heartbreaking, and unusual. A portion of the author’s proceeds from the book will go directly to benefit 826 CHICAGO, a nonprofit tutoring center, part of the national organization of tutoring centers with branches in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, and Seattle. Finalist for the 2008 Story Prize Time Out Chicago Best Books of 2008 Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2008 “This short story collection succeeds word to word, sentence to sentence, and cover to cover.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)</div>

Joe Meno
Follow this author

Books By Joe Meno (6 Books)

The Boy Detective Fails

Office Girl

Marvel and a Wonder

Tender As Hellfire

How the Hula Girl Sings

Demons in the Spring

Get weekly updates and deals from Early Bird Books

More from

Corporate

© 2024 OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Books By Joe Meno (6 Books)

The Boy Detective Fails

Office Girl

Marvel and a Wonder

Tender As Hellfire

How the Hula Girl Sings

Demons in the Spring

RELATED POSTS ABOUT JOE MENO

Get weekly updates and deals from Early Bird Books

Corporate

© 2024 OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA