“No, dad, I've never seen urine colored pearls.”

Each drip off the corrugated plastic sheeting made a tinny sound that he could hear from deep within the damp sleeping bag and layers of blankets where he was trying to sleep.

But there’s a special place in my heart for Richler’s tour de force of a novel, his grand finale, Barney’s Version. It has everything — humour, a whiff of mystery, poignancy, a suggested reading list for a literary illiterate like yours truly, the Falstaf

The woman stopped halfway down the stairs and sighed inaudibly. Her hand rested lightly on the bannister, her right foot caught in the motion of standing on the step below. …

We’d sometimes find my mother asleep in her chair outside her trailer at the nudist camp when we drove up. She loved her garden there, even with the rabbits eating her young tomato plants. She used to coax the bluebirds down to the railing of her trailer

"I wonder what happened to Murder Man and Lust Girl?" wondered The Black Toadstool. The Anti-Justice League were in Machu Picchu, on a short vacation after taking over most of South America and the South Pole. The South Pole had been so easy. …

a lost children…

rinse plate cup glass spoon bowl soapy water

At home I cranked the oven and stuffed both pizzas in there and when they were ready I ate every crumb of both pies.

Secretly she suspected she was really a witch. She didn't have green skin or scraggly black hair, and certainly no flying monkeys. Maybe those came over time, the more bad things you did, the more ugly you became until all the world could see how horrible

"I have a prehensile tongue," he said matter-of-factly. "I know how to make you feel good." Such confidence, I say. Prove it.We're sitting on the couch, watching a movie, but not paying attention to it. We sit side-by-side, my leaning into him, and his arm is around me,…

Through void decks of apartment blocks, Over roads on overhead bridges, Down small streets on concrete pavements.

For the kid in me who fell head over heels all the way down the stars, I wonder where you are now. Slack is harder to cut than you might think, I have learned. And assigning the middle finger its true purpose keeps me pretty bus

I almost forgot. Her nipples taste like that syrup from a can of peaches. The kind you aren’t supposed to eat if you are 18 or older. The kind that adds baggage to the hips and I’m certainly not about to take out an insurance policy on my ass.

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