It's Saturday, october 27, 1962, the darkest day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Two children, Ralph and his little sister Lou, are searching for empty bottles in a vacant lot when they discover a rock which—to them, at least—looks quite a lot like Jesus. Ralph immediately declares it a Possible Holy Object. And, since his fondest wish is to be a "boy-in-a-story," he earnestly places himself and Lou—now his "sidekick"—in a tale featuring the "sacred rock" as the key to nothing less than saving the world from nuclear annihilation. But there's another boy, Toby—older, shrewder, and quite a bit larger—who has very different plans for the rock, intending to use it as a lucrative sideshow exhibit, complete with fliers: Is it Jesus? Or just a rock? You decide! Hovering over the children and their small-scale war is the general anxiety and dread attending the most perilous moment in our history. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the...

In this comic, witty memoir, John Manderino shows us how the pivotal points of his life have been enmeshed with movie moments. "Crying at Movies" presents thirty-eight succinct chapters, each bearing the title of a film. It is at once a love-letter to an art form and a humorous appreciation of the distinctions between movie scenes and life's realities.

This collection of twenty-six dark but often humorous short stories features a pantheon of disturbed and disturbing characters, human and otherwise. Many of the stories are modern takes on classic monsters crafted with twisted plots and Twilight Zone-esque endings. For example, "Wolfman and Janice" is about a werewolf who is doing the best he can under very trying circumstances, especially when confronted with eating his elderly neighbor's cat. There's an adolescent vampire-wannabe who is suffering badly: in love for the first time. "Frankenstein and His Mother" is a terrifying story of a grown man who wears a Frankenstein mask and lives with his mother watching TV and eating corn chips all day while being afraid of work. "Dracula's Daughter" turns a pretentious hippie into an honest ghost. And Bigfoot—lonely, sexually frustrated—tells all. Other stories feature characters who seem perfectly normal until they're alone. Phil, for instance, is never so happy as when he's...

On a job application, there's that tricky question: reason for leaving? John Manderino's answers are collected here in this hilarious novel tracing the history of a guy trying to grow up job by job. Delivery boy, altar boy, busboy, teacher, cotton picker, umpire, Zen monk—Manderino's protagonist tries on one hat after another.