A daughter learns from her father how to thrive beyond the reach of conventional morality; paranoia convinces someone their alphabet soup has been hacked; a bored teenager decides his fate is selling rocking chairs for a living; a jolly lady tries to infuse life back into the hopeless residents of a “crying house”; the Lying Machine spits out “alternative facts”; —in this collection of narratives set against a backdrop of encroaching menace, victims struggle to preserve their threatened humanity. Crying Houses limns the destinies of heroes and fools who confront the calamitous demands of a world on the cusp.

John Carroll was born in Buffalo, New York. He immigrated to Canada in 1972. He has received degrees from Wesleyan University, Western Washington University, and The University of British Columbia. He has worked as a house painter, stevedore, busboy, speech writer, stage actor and director, movie extra, composer, free lance writer, and English professor. He is currently chair of the English Department at The University of the Fraser Valley. The Plastic Heart is his second collection.

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