Welcome to the Goat Rodeo

**Long-listed for the FRANK O'CONNOR INTERNATIONAL SHORT STORY AWARD**

"Barlow is a magician. He transforms ordinary life into a mysterious place where the weirdest things happen."

In the tradition of Hitchcock,

these sixteen stories turn the everyday -a 24-hour diner, a convenience store, a parent's home, a tree-filled neighborhood-into dark realms where...

...a son worms his way over, under, and through his hoarder father's house-in search of a box that holds his future

...a man must decide whether to stop a teenage girl from climbing into a strange man's car

...a woman sits in a tree to teach her husband a lesson, but learns more about her neighbors than she wants to know

...a man considers selling his soul to give his wife the baby she desperately wants

Are you a connoisseur of the peculiar, the odd, the darkly humorous, and the mysterious? Well, then...Welcome to the Goat Rodeo.