Encyclopedia of Lies

In these sixteen stories, Christopher Gudgeon, bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Song of Kosovo,takes a heartbreaking and hilarious look into the lives, loves, sexual obsessions and delusions that inform a grand cast of off-kilter characters. Here is a gay couple who persevere with their marriage plans as the world, literally, crumbles around them, a woman who discovers the mysterious collection of letters that reveals a terrifying truth about her deceased finance, a dutiful son, locked in an life-or-death marathon race with his famous father, and a baby who becomes infested with fruit flies, sending his adoptive parents into a spiral of recrimination and self-doubt. At once bitterly funny, provocative and poignant, this remarkable collection, follow up to Greeting from the Vodka Sea, Gudgeon's short story debut, The Encyclopedia of Lies builds on his growing literary reputation, offering up the work of a great storyteller at his very best.