{"product_id":"2940014867696","title":"TWO-HEADED DOG","description":"Hank Ribinthal is a psychologist at FLOPSIE, a state mental hospital in the Florida panhandle. When his favorite patient, Tiffany, disappears from the hospital grounds, Hank becomes obsessed with finding her. His search brings him into Tiffany's world, and into a wider and weirder reality than he believed possible.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWarning: No leash. No muzzle. Two-Headed Dog will bite you with more force than a pit bull, and won't let go until it's done with you. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCraig Holden, winner of the Great Lakes Book Award in Fiction, says: \"Two-Headed Dog is compelling. The further I got in, the faster I found myself reading. And believe me, that doesn't happen to me so often any more. I have trouble finishing most novels these days, published or not, because they all feel so... predictable. This book, to say the least, is not. This book is a ticking clock. A search. A mystery. \u003cbr\u003eThe novel begins in Part I as a fairly sedate, carefully observed story of a lonely doctor in a somewhat eccentric mental facility. The book just takes off in Part II, when Hank finds the renegade half-way house in the woods. There the book begins to transform, to become mystical and revelatory. It was at this point that I knew I was hooked, turning the pages as quickly as I could. After that, the story doesn't let up. It explodes. Once Hank finds Tiffany at her father's mansion, in Part III, the novel again metamorphoses, from the intriguing and mystical to flat-out bizarre and surreal. Wow. These scenes are riveting. Each section works on its own terms. I'm fascinated and refreshed by this book.' \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMartin Shepard, Publisher of Permanent Press says: \"Two-Headed Dog is an interesting novel; with so many different twists and turns. I see it as a very original take on the nature of the beast--the Beast being humankind--with all of its capacities for love, lust and bloodlust, sanity and madness; a novel that seems based in reality as it begins and becomes increasingly surrealistic but always raising all these questions of \"What's at the core of us humans?,\" and it's done with humor and folly and great poetic touches. It deserves to be a huge hit.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTWO-HEADED DOG is published by Dirt e-books (Books You Are Not Permitted to Read) founded by Gary Heidt.   \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Gary Heidt became a literary agent in 2001 and began working in a well-known New York agency, his motivation was to find exciting, innovative, high quality literary novels and get them published. Gary was successful, representing such authors as Charles Yu, winner of the National Book Foundation's Five Under 35 Award and Amy S. King, winner of the Michael L. Printz Award.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHowever, Gary was not satisfied. He watched as publishers increasingly valued marketability over quality, as sales and marketing departments gained power in the making of publishing decisions, and as the focus became the promotion of genre bestsellers. Meanwhile, highly creative, hard to characterize novels were being overlooked. \u003cbr\u003eFrustrated by the fact that some of his most deserving clients were not achieving publication, Gary decided to form his own publishing company, Dirt e-books. The publication of e-books, he realized, would enable him to make quality literature easily accessible at highly affordable prices to a large (and growing) segment of the reading public. Without the high overhead of corporate publishers, unburdened by their antiquated business plans, free of the domination of the profit motive, Gary's only consideration became quality. Focusing on the literary expression of richness, aliveness, uniqueness, and passion, Dirt e-books is creating a curated line of distinguished neo-modern novels.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere are the first two paragraphs of TWO-HEADED DOG:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTiffany crosses Main Street, the borderline between FLOPSIE (staff shorthand for Florida Panhandle State Hospital) and the town of Chippahitchka. Unless reminded, she often forgets to watch for traffic, but most drivers have learned to keep an eye out for distracted patients. She makes a cigarette stop at Rebel Market, then ducks next door to The Gate for a cup of coffee. She fills her lungs with the cool luxury of menthol and the waitress’s ears with delusions.  \u003cbr\u003eIn Highcastle Pharmacy, she meanders the aisles, always returning to the discount lipstick rack with its blurry mirror. Tiffany’s hands tend to shake from medication and, if I’m not with her to blot the edges of her lips with a tissue, she invariably smoothes the garish color beyond its intended boundaries. The effect is, I hate to admit, nearly clown-like. Her attempts to restore her wounded beauty are never better than awkward approximations.","brand":"Xavier Vargas E-ditions","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47074080358640,"sku":"2940014867696","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940014867696_p0.jpg?v=1763616188","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014867696","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}