In this unsettling collection, Vancouver singer/songwriter Rodney DeCroo delivers raw footage of a childhood marred by violence, sudden uprootings, and abuse. Allegheny, BC is a candid, gritty tour through DeCroo's troubled past in a small coal town outside of Pittsburgh, PA, the bush of northern BC, and his young adult years in Vancouver. Scenes of boys growing up along the banks of the filthy Allegheny River cut to hunting trips with an unpredictable father haunted by the Vietnam War to snapshots of seedy bars and strip clubs as the narrator struggles to come of age despite his circumstances.

DeCroo searches out available meaning and transcendence in fierce attentiveness to the often painful realities of life. Allegheny, BC is a reclamation project, an imaginative remembering through the savaged places of the human heart into beauty and acceptance. It is the river that flows through DeCroo's life, at times lazily meandering, at times whitecapped and raging, but constantly working its way around moments that shaped a life and inevitably led to the man who stands before us.

This collection follows Rodney DeCroo's recently released album, Allegheny, which has received critical acclaim in the Canadian music industry.

Rodney DeCroo is a Vancouver-based singer/songwriter and poet. Born and raised in a small coal mining town just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he has called Vancouver home for years now. He has released a previous collection of poetry, Allegheny, BC (Nightwood, 2012) and seven music albums that have received critical acclaim in Canada, the USA and Europe. Music critics have named him one of Canada's best folk/alt-country songwriters.Next Door to the Butcher Shop is his latest collection of poetry.

Rodney DeCroo's profile page