The Mountie at Niagara Falls is an astonishingly absurd and humorous collection of brief stories from Toronto author Salvatore Difalco. Ranging in length from fifty to seven hundred words, these vital and sudden fictional forays transport the reader to worlds both big and small: a land where green goats roam, voodoo dolls inflict crushing migraine headaches, a typographer from South Porcupine kills a potential love affair with a discussion of sans serif type, a benevolent judge imparts clemency on an admittedly violent man, and the road of experience turns this way and that for a truffle-snuffing boar and a talking cat.

These brief tales are alternately fantastic, humorous, menacing, contemplative, absurd, hallucinatory, violent, confessional, and always provocative.

Illustrations by Francesco Gallé.

Praise for Mountie at Niagara Falls & Other Brief Stories:

"A master of the miniature, Sal Difalco's micro-fictions achieve a wry resonance that longer efforts often miss. They are simultaneously concrete and whimsical, ranging from a woman with the head of a fish, to ballroom dancing lessons, to a pair of thieves in Brian Mulroney masks. Each story is as sharp as a slap. An eloquent and exciting read." (Grant Buday, author of Dragonflies and Rootbound)

"Salvatore Difalco's stories are small miracles: fresh, literate, startling, and a bit off-kilter, like something seen in a dream or out of the corner of your eye." (Stephen Osborne, Geist)

"Salvatore Difalco's The Mountie at Niagara Falls (Anvil, 2010) has more stories in it than I can count. More than 100 in 142 pages. They are intense narrative chunks, full of incident, frequently spliced with zingers and twists, emboldened with absurdity, on occasion sad. It's the full-meal deal, rapid fire. I don't know what to compare it to, except John Lennon and Spike Milligan." (Underground Book Club, Michael Bryson's blog)

Salvatore Difalco was born and raised in Hamilton Ontario where he attended Cathedral High. Graduated with MA in English from U Of T after winning an SSHRC Fellowship. Has worked many jobs including Counsellor at the maximum security Peninsula Youth Centre. He was an editor and regular contributor at Toro Magazine. He is the author of one book of poetry and two collections of short fiction, Mean Season is his first novel. He currently resides in Toronto and works as an Italian translator.

Salvatore Difalco's profile page