Telling Stories

WINNER OF THE REED / NORTH & SOUTH FICTION AWARD

I weave fictions round my life. Alternate realities where I am the master of every situation ... I know my alter-ego better than I know myself, or anyone else for that matter, and yet he is a mirage, not-even-ghost, the fiction of a fiction.

Steven Spalding is a mild-mannered, overweight civil servant with a humdrum, solitary life. But he has a secret: a rude, wise-cracking, anarchic alter-ego named Eric Dombey.

Buried in hilarious tales of comic genius, in a variety of formats ranging from diary entries to movie scripts, a truer picture of the real Steven begins to emerge, and all is not as it seems. As events in his life accelerate and slip out of control, the boundaries between the real and the unreal begin to blur.

In this cleverly crafted novel, Geoff Palmer makes us reconsider the whole concept of fiction and reality, while providing keen yet sympathetic insights into the complexities of the human condition.

Hilarious, heart-breaking and quietly disturbing.

Geoff Palmer’s debut novel delighted and riveted both readers and critics, winning the prestigious Reed / North & South Award. If you enjoy the comic genius of A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole or the anarchic wit and biting satire of A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz, you will love Telling Stories.

Buy it now and see why the critics raved!

Praise for Telling Stories

“A splendid and entertaining book. It's full of great gags and descriptions, and handles the difficult structure with a bubbly, tumbling assurance.” - Kevin Ireland, Quote Unquote

“When alter-ego Eric lets loose it is laugh-a-minute stuff. Concise, witty and very funny.” - Miles Moodie, Waikato Times

“Very entertaining. A clever and unpredictable novel.” - Owen Marshall

“Stiletto-sharp. An accomplished debut.” - Graeme Lay, North & South

“Deceptively casual, casually deceitful. Satirical, eccentric, compassionate, Telling Stories is a delight. It'll stand a second reading to get the full complexity, the cross-referencing and allusions, the elegant recklessness.” - Ronda Cooper, Metro

A rambunctious, punning read.”

“Carefully constructed, consistently comical.” - Bede Scott, Sunday Star Times

“Cunningly plotted. Fiendishly twisted.” - David Eggleton, New Zealand Listener

“Witty, irreverent, satirical, outrageous.” - Ian Dixon, Christchurch Press

“I found Geoff Palmer an exciting new voice in our literature and hope he has more stories to tell of equal challenge to the imagination.” - Howard Warner, New Zealand Books

“Geoff Palmer ... plays realism off against post-modernism, as inept Steven Spalding is depicted transforming his increasingly dangerous misadventures into stories concerning the confident Eric Dombey, with the two finally becoming inextricably crossed, producing a book that can be read as both an implicit attack on post-modern moral relativism and a post-modern undermining of narrative certainty.” - Terry Sturm, The Oxford History of New Zealand Literature

Categories for Tellling Stories

- Fiction classics

- Literature & Fiction

- Humour & Satire

- Literary Humour

- Humour Fiction

- World Literature, New Zealand

- Contemporary Fiction

- Humour satire funny books

- Coming of age

- Family life