Fiction

"This is a story about relationships, between father and son, friends, and most importantly between two newly formed couples. Following the lives and thoughts of four people in their mid-twenties, already experienced in dating but starting wonder if that one one person is out there. Taking a look inside the thoughts and conversations on both sides of the fragile world romance and pain, friendship and fear, and life in New York, Most Likely ... is filled with culture, laughter, quasi-advice, and the idea of wanting everything but knowing nothing. As the characters seek advance, theior confusion mounts, emotions break down and get rebuilt, and the reader is left to wonder if men and women will ever really learn how to love."

"Halo of the Damned"is a suspenseful horror novel.

*A Survey of My Failures This Far is a mammoth book, but it is really seven distinct books. Each of these is inter-related in odd little ways, such as a character in one is actually the author of another, et cetera, but each is also its own distinct universe." *

The Garland Review is a collection of creative writing by Harold Washington students, staff and faculty.

Poetry and short stories selected to reflect a variety of women's experiences, as well as regional (Midwestern) cultures.

"A young ex-con in a small Illinois town. A lonely giant with a haunted past. A beautiful girl with a troubled heart. Strange and darkly magical, How the Hula Girl Sings begins exactly where most pulp fiction usually ends, with the vivid episode of the terrible crime itself. Three years later, Luce Lemay, out on parole for the awful tragedy, does his best to find hope: in a new job at the local Gas-N-Go; in his companion and fellow ex-con, the giant 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. How the Hula Girl sings is a suspenseful exploration of a country bright with the far-off stars of forgiveness and dark with the still-looming shadow of the death penalty."

Novel about the world's fair.

"A.D. Jameson, lost and innocent, narcissistic and corrupted, has been dreaming his way through the past thirty years, the dying breaths of the fictional 20th Century. In his dreams he made many friends: the alien puppet ALF, cantankerous, threadbare, and living in a casket; Luke Skywalker, middle-aged, mustachioed, and hateful; and Bonnie Raitt, the ceramicist, shining spotlights onto sand and cancer. He invites you now to join both him and them; his lips shape your name. For his dreams have also been about you; he's been searching for you for a long time. Lie down beside him; allow him to drape his glittery silver fur coat across your shoulders. He'll fold his hands and bow and whisper. He'll hand you a gumball that's grown stale inside a locket. He'll hand you a gem that fell down from the moon. Together, you'll sail across the ocean on his wok rat; nibbling his tree pig. Together, you'll enter these fantastical tombs."

Rey Andújar’s work challenges the monotony of our surroundings and when his talent is blended with 7V’s ambitions the result is his provocative, funny, disturbing, sad, and triumphant Saturnalia. This hardcover collection of fourteen short stories has been translated into English by Kolin Jordan and takes us to unexpected destinations. During your travels you will experience the excitement and heartache related to expatriation and immigration, revenge and desire, and music and belonging. Through it all we get the sense of a world striated by the unexpected. *

Written by Manuel Abreu Adorno and originally published in 1978, And the Hippies Came / Llegaron los hippies has been released as a “flip” version that reads through to the middle in Spanish, and when flipped over, reads through to the middle in English. The twelve stories included in this masterpiece were translated by Rafael Franco Steeves, a Puerto Rican author who has published two books and various other stories and translations. This is the first time that this cult-classic has been made available in English. *