The acclaimed author of The Peep Diaries and Hello, I'm Special returns to fiction, and delivers a mind-altering collection of short stories that confront the hypocrisies, humiliations and hilarities of modern life. The foibles of the 21st-century ego are on full view in this romp through social conventions — imaginative, offbeat stories that confront society's intractable dilemmas and deftly capture the zeitgeist of our fractured times.*An undergraduate gets in way over his head when a class assignment to start a terrorist organization goes viral*A pregnant 10th-grader struggles with her fetus's insistence that she abort him before both their lives are ruined. *A man trying to come to terms with the death of a friend becomes obsessed with a funeral home's online braodcasts. *A mortgage broker gets lost between the Web and the real world in pursuit of a pornography-induced fantasy.Look Down, This is Where It Must Have...

When Chris, an unambitious young waiter, walks through the park on his way home from work, he stumbles onto the set of a Hollywood film — and is promptly mistaken for the missing lead actor.Corralled into filming a scene for The Lost Expert — director Bryant Reed's last-ditch effort to restore his reputation — Chris assumes the identity of international action star Thomson Holmes, and disconnects from his real life. He falls deeply into his newfound identity as Holmes and as his character in the film, a struggling young man who has the ability to find lost people and things.Tensions mount as Chris gradually learns of the real Thomson Holmes' scandals and accusations of sexual misconduct. Meanwhile, the real Thomson Holmes has disappeared and Chris has reason to fear he'll be next. As he tries to figure out what happened to the actor, he grapples with his role as imposter and whether he can — or even should — extricate himself from reinvention.

Residents of the fictional edge city of Wississauga are embroiled in a fight over the fate of a riverbed running behind their homes. Their paths intersect, bringing personal dilemmas and self-deceptions to the forefront. Has June discovered bones of the first inhabitants in her backyard? Will Tim learn the truth about his parents? Can Charlie make a connection she so desperately needs? Reinforcing his position as a cultural soothsayer, Hal Niedzviecki offers a view of the suburbs in a slightly askew world. With humour and insight, he examines how we project, or reflect, ourselves in our collective and individual histories, and challenges our views of identity and home.