Secret Life of Doris Melnick

If you love entertainment that makes you laugh out loud at the absurdity in issues that are actually pretty serious, then you’ll be a big fan of this illustrated brain-on-fire story about an aging woman’s life as she reflects on passing her years in anonymity.

"Doris was the woman who worked one of our cash registers at FoodWorld, forever and maybe even longer. But nobody knew a thing about her, or even wanted to because she always kept to herself. And then we guessed one day she must be dead because for a whole week she wasn’t there at the Cash. Not till we heard rumour she’d left behind her house to someone she’d never known, who’d found in the house this journal full of crazy stories Doris had written, and piles and piles of drawings and paintings so fantastic you’d never believe anyone could see herself like that. The secret life of Doris Melnick! The woman not one of us knew though she’d been there all that time. So what does that mean, I wonder?" —Statement by Alice Geerson, FoodWorld clerk

Includes over 50 colour and 20 black-and-white illustrations and paintings.

Gail Prussky is an ex-addiction therapist who moved from Toronto to rural Ontario in 2007. In this slowed-down setting, it suddenly occurred to her that if she didn’t write and make art (a new-found passion), she’d probably become a serial killer. Taking this into consideration, she owes much of her creative side to her desire to never experience incarceration. The fact that many people enjoy her work has been a bonus. Gail’s art has been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows, and is in collections around the world. Her first book was Broken Balloons (Exile Editions, 2016).

David Cronenberg’s reputation as an authentic auteur has been firmly established by his uniquely personal body of work which include Shivers, Fast Company, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Crash, The Dead Zone, A History of Violence, and Cosmopolis.

Terry Graff maintains an active studio practice in the town of Island View, New Brunswick, while also enjoying a professional career in the visual arts as an art educator, curator, art writer, and director of four public art galleries in four different provinces of Canada. His work includes mixed media drawings, paintings, collages, assemblages, sculpture, kinetic works, and multi-media installations.