Description
Coming September 2018
In his fourth collection, C. P. Boyko turns his keen eye to the question of power—in schools and on campuses, in doctor’s offices and boardrooms, in triage tents and on the battle field. A high-school math teacher tries too hard to be liked; childhood friends grow up and go to war for very different reasons; for purposes not entirely medical, a dentist hypnotizes a patient; management and workers struggle for control of a faltering factory; infantries comprised exclusively of women meet in battle; and undergraduates occupy a university president’s office, rallying beneath the flag of moral outrage.
Moving effortlessly through a range of styles, from contemporary realist fiction and episodic adventures to three-act plays and polyvocal narratives, Boyko’s chameleon talents reveal the thread that binds his disparate characters and plots: the hunger to hold power and all the ways we are consumed by it. Clear-eyed but not cynical, satirical without being sarcastic, The Children’s War is as entertaining as it is insightful.
Praise for The Children’s War
“Graphic, tragic, beautiful, surprising, nuanced…and unmistakably genius.” —Kirkus
Praise for C.P. Boyko
“Stealthy, seductive… A collection that in many ways… will provide thought-fodder, not to mention good old-fashioned pleasure, for months.” —The Montreal Gazette
“Mirthful, sly and intermittently caustic.” —Vancouver Sun
“Rich, funny… widely admired.” —Georgia Straight
“These stories are funny and sardonic, satirical, well-written, and keen… [Boyko’s] characters are larger-than-life, very funny, but more authentic than they first seem… we’ll enjoy laughing at them, and laugh at ourselves at the same time.” —San Francisco Book Review
