In this violent, raw, and often beautiful novel, Daniel Jones captures the long-vanished Toronto where a broke teen punk could buy a beer with a two-dollar bill. Soo, Kid, Jacky, and Boy are damaged and self-destructive, losing whole days to cheap booze and pills, accidental blackouts and hospital stays. They badly want to emulate local punk idols like the Viletones and Teenage Head, but can't hold it together long enough to learn an entire song. 1978 is Jones' uncompromising literary take on the frantic energy and bleak extremes of the early Toronto punk scene, but it's also the story of a group of messed-up kids in a squalid apartment, desperately looking underneath all the attitude and filth for something real.

Daniel Jones was born in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1959, and lived in Toronto from 1977 until his tragic suicide in 1994. His books include a collection of poetry, The Brave Never Write Poetry (Coach House), a novel, Obsessions (Mercury), and a collection of short stories, The People One Knows (Mercury). A former contributing editor to WHAT!, Piranha, and Border/Lines, Jones also edited and, with his wife, Robyn Gillam, co-published Streetcar Editions.

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LIZ WORTH is a poet, novelist and nonfiction writer. She is a two-time nominee for the ReLit Award for Poetry for her books The Truth Is Told Better This Way and No Work Finished Here: Rewriting Andy Warhol. Her first book, Treat Me Like Dirt, was the first of its kind to provide an in-depth history of southern Ontario’s first wave punk movement. Her other works also include Amphetamine Heart, PostApoc, and The Mouth is a Coven. Her writing has appeared in Chatelaine, FLARE, Prism, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and Broken Pencil, among others. Liz is a professional tarot reader and lives in Hamilton, Ontario.

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Kevin Connolly’s previous collections include Asphalt Cigar (finalist, Gerald Lampert Award), Drift (winner, Trillium Poetry Prize), and Revolver (finalist, Griffin Poetry Prize, Trillium Book Award). He teaches poetry in the MFA program at the University of Guelph-Humber and has been poetry faculty at the Banff Centre’s May Writing Studio. Connolly was poetry editor at Toronto’s Coach House Books from 2008–2013, and currently selects and edits poetry for McClelland & Stewart.

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