Need

“Instead of jumping off tall buildings, we jump off people—lovers, friends, family, anything to up the volume, sharpen the pain, improve the drama.”

Financial adversity, an abiding love of Ella Fitzgerald and his girlfriend’s insistence drive a man to rob a bank. A desperate fan blurs the line between reason and the irrational. A late night cruise escalates into obsession and violence. A pregnant woman spirals into madness when confronted by her husband’s indiscretions. A lonely urban man fixates on his next-door neighbour.

Robert Thomson writes incisively about the types of need we experience—sometimes through emotional explosions, but more often in the private details of day-to-day life. Written with visceral immediacy, grace, and wit, the stories of Need can be held up like mirrors to our emotional selves.

Praise for Need

Need is a book that belongs on the nightstand as much as Tylenol or condoms. Highly recommended.
— David Crosson, Outlooks magazine

Robert Thomson has hit upon the nerve of the downside of the queer lifestyle with startling results.
— Kevin Jagernauth, Broken Pencil

Need is full of like characters, striving after the same understanding of themselves and others that mark any piece of serious fiction.
— Ray Robertson, The Toronto Star

Evoking scattershot, anxious, searching/failing urban gay lives with wonderful clarity. these 16 stories are engaging and sometimes striking in their insights, offering ghastly-funny snapshots of queer Toronto.
— Jim Bartley, XTRA magazine

View "Last Visit," a short film directed by Robert Thomson and based on the story "If," from this book. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHKLe8oOn3k