THE JAMES MASON COMMUNITY BOOK CLUB discussion

UPDATE: Stranger Will has been named the May 2011 Chuck Palahniuk.net bookclub pick! Read it, then tear it apart at http://chuckpalahniuk.net/forum/1000029

Rick encouraged me to start this thread. He's a good guy for it.

I'm doing a blog tour in support of my just-released novel, Stranger Will. If anyone is interested in hosting me, find out more here: http://www.calebjross.com/stranger-wi...

ABOUT:
William works as a human remains removal specialist, removing stains left by the dead. Whether by a bloody crime scene or a quiet domestic death, William is reminded each day of the frailty of human life. As his fiancée, Julie, nears term with their first child William becomes increasingly desperate for a way to overcome his belief that to birth is to kill. But Mrs. Rose, an elementary school principal and messenger pigeon hobbyist, nurtures William’s depressive outlook and claims to have a way to prove that William’s hesitancy to accept fatherhood is not only natural but necessary.

In this novel of impending fatherhood, an idealistic teacher recruits a pliant protégé to join her group of Strangers – a devout collection of kindred minds who have dedicated their lives to cultivating a unique idea of perfection.

But joining is easier than leaving.

PRAISE:
“As someone who teaches, edits and reads for a living, I’m always looking for the scene, the character, the story I haven’t read a thousand times over and over. Something with the spark of originality and the courage to be different. When I see that something new, it’s always a joy. And, thanks to Caleb Ross and his Stranger Will, I had those moments of joy repeatedly throughout the book. This is an original—unlike anything you’ve ever read before.”

-Rob Roberge, author of More Than They Could Chew and Drive

“Stranger Will is a nightmare landscape littered with the carcasses of fatherhood and various social mores. This is one paranoid, challenging, beautiful, and pitch-dark book. I’m a little afraid of this Ross guy now; but I’ll also read anything he writes.”

-Paul Tremblay, author of The Little Sleep and In The Mean Time

“Just like a Palahniuk novel, Stranger Will reads volatile: it could go any way. Caleb J. Ross leads you with a wry smile into dark places, but by the time you realize it’s too late. You will follow him anywhere.”

-Alan Emmins, author of Mop Men: Inside the World of Crime Scene Cleaners

“Caleb J Ross is a dangerous writer. He wields an impressive collection of hazardous, black-hearted ideas, and he has the skill to feed them right into your gray matter. Even if you’ve already got an obsidian-dark sense of humor, a cast-iron stomach, and a membership in Misanthropes Monthly, you are letting Caleb J Ross into your mind at your own risk.”

-Jeremy Robert Johnson, author of Angel Dust Apocalypse and Extinction Journals

“[Caleb] is gifted, in that his characters exhibit grotesqueries that somehow seem encoded with the same flaws of the world they inhabit, as if they are not constructs, but victims: the fruits of a tree growing upside down.”

–Jason Kane, Oxyfication.net

“More nihilistic than a chainsaw-wielding midget who wants to be the tallest man on Earth.”

-Bradley Sands, author of Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy
and editor of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens