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    The Jokes
    The Jokes
    The Jokes
    Ebook108 pages36 minutes

    The Jokes

    By Stephen Thomas

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    About this ebook

    We sit, hunched over the words that appear on our smartphone screens, altogether unaware of the story of our lives that is going on around us, even as we focus on the minutiae of our social media "friends'" daily activities. These are the stories that draw our undivided attention, and these are the types of deftly observed, wholly engrossing narratives that make up Stephen Thomas's debut flash-fiction collection, The Jokes.

    Presented in the form of a most common present-tense—as a series of moments in a social-media-like 'feed'—this collection of very short stories riffs on the form of 'the joke,' but as this might be understood by the best culture-critical comedians of our time: Andy Kaufman, Stephen Wright, Norm McDonald, Jon Stewart, Richard Pryor. And much like those stand-up artists who sanctified the joke-form, these stories deal with sometimes-intense subjects, yet with a kind of SSRI-like placidity that allows readers to cling to each word as the narratives unfold.

    In drawing comparisons to Lydia Davis's creatively detached but inventively curious writing, Thomas's The Jokes is a book for thinkers; sad and funny, hopeful and determined, nostalgic and cerebral, these vignettes offer a very personal, yet amazingly relatable entry-point into big ideas that trouble our times—religion, sexuality, life and death, and ways of being in the world—all while coloured by touches of weird otherworldliness that living in someone else’s social-media feed can bring.

    Fans of metafiction and philosophy, 'alt lit,’ artist and academics (particularly students of art history and theory), readers interested in experimental and somewhat cerebral fiction in the vein of Ben Marcus, Lily Hoang, or Maggie Nelson, as well as audiences interested in the uses and abuses of Internet and social media, will connect with Thomas’s particular take on worlds within worlds.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookThug
    Release dateMar 29, 2015
    ISBN9781771662079
    The Jokes
    Author

    Stephen Thomas

    I am a writer, yogi, gardener, traveler, and lover of life. I have worked in ministry, drove ambulance in LA, worked in a mental hospital, and industry (the last two are really quite similar).

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      Book preview

      The Jokes - Stephen Thomas

      first edition

      Copyright © Stephen Thomas, 2016

      The production of this book was made possible through the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. BookThug also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Book Fund.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      library and archives canada cataloguing in publication

      Thomas, Stephen, 1982-, author

             The jokes : stories / Stephen Thomas.

      Issued in print and electronic formats.

      paperback: ISBN 978-1-77166-206-2

      html: ISBN 978-1-77166-207-9

      pdf: ISBN 978-1-77166-208-6

      kindle: ISBN 978-1-77166-209-3

             I. Title.

      PS8639.H6J65 2016      C813’.6      C2016-901041-4      C2016-901042-2

      Contents

      One

      Taken . . . 15

      The fall . . . 16

      One principle . . . 17

      The snake . . . 19

      Joined a band . . . 20

      Beach sounds . . . 21

      The miracle . . . 23

      Jesus hernandez-browne . . . 24

      Day . . . 25

      A fine balance . . . 27

      Visitation . . . 28

      The fear . . . 29

      A little story . . . 31

      Flowers for grandma . . . 32

      A simple country girl . . . 33

      The balloon . . . 35

      In the hagia sophia . . . 36

      On this day in history . . . 37

      Presidential graves . . . 39

      Two

      Two girls . . . 43

      Beer . . . 44

      Ethnic joke . . . 45

      A hero of a tale . . . 47

      Sandbox . . . 48

      In the company of others . . . 49

      The demon . . . 51

      Very strong men . . . 52

      The pressure at the bottom of the ocean . . . 53

      Edward . . . 55

      The voyage of monsieur ronflé . . . 56

      Weekend . . . 57

      A one and a two

      The piercing . . . 61

      Things . . . 62

      The motives . . . 63

      Tree

      One path to the lake . . . 67

      Extraordinary lives . . . 68

      I can’t even remember . . . 69

      The moon . . . 71

      Fishing . . . 72

      Mr. death . . . 73

      The deep . . . 75

      Lost at the zoo . . . 76

      Coming of age . . . 77

      Milestones

      The wait . . . 81

      In perpetuity . . . 82

      The liffey . . . 83

      The shiny metal bunny, pt. 1 . . . 85

      The shiny metal bunny, pt. 2 . . . 86

      The shiny metal bunny, pt. 3 . . .

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