Buying Cigarettes for the Dog

The first book of fiction since 1997 from the consummately underground Stuart Ross blends a characteristic penchant for experiment with the measured skill of a seasoned, highly disciplined craftsman. A man steps out for a pack of smokes and winds up walking around the planet; a woman sun-tanning by a pool finds herself covered in chicken feet; a guerrilla army of cows infiltrates a big city; a man hires a bodyguard to protect him from his poodle. Ross's stories hold a mirror to the absurdities of 21st-century earth; his is an absurdism so true that it becomes real.