Demons in the Spring: Stories

New paperback edition; twenty artists illustrate twenty stories from the best-selling author of Hairstyles of the Damned.

―The limited edition hardcover of Demons in the Spring was a finalist for the 2009 Story Prize, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2008, and a Time Out Chicago Best Book of 2008.

“An inspired collection of twenty stories, brilliant in its command of tone and narrative perspective . . . Creativity and empathy mark the collection . . . Illustrations enhance the already vivid storytelling.” ―Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

“Spanning worlds, generations, cultures and environments, each of Meno’s short stories in this stellar collection explores depression, loneliness and insanity in the world, while never quite offering a clear solution or glimmer of hope. Misery loves company, and Meno’s assortment of off-center, morose characters fit seamlessly together . . . Catering to all the odd men out in the world, this short story collection succeeds word to word, sentence to sentence, and cover to cover.” ―Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

The limited edition hardcover of Demons in the Spring is a collection of twenty short stories, with illustrations by twenty artists from the fine art, graphic art, and comic book worlds―including Todd Baxter, Kelsey Brookes, Ivan Brunetti, Charles Burns, Nick Butcher, Steph Davidson, Evan Hecox, Paul Hornschemeier, Cody Hudson, Caroline Hwang, kozyndan, The Little Friends of Printmaking, Geoff McFetridge, Lauren Nassef, Anders Nilsen, Archer Prewitt, Jon Resh, Jay Ryan, Souther Salazar, Rachell Sumpter, and Chris Uphues.

Within Demons in the Spring, oddly modern moments which occur in the most familiar of public places, from offices to airports to schools to zoos to emergency rooms: a young girl who refuses to go anywhere unless she’s dressed as a ghost; a bank robbery in Stockholm gone terribly wrong; a teacher who’s become enamored with the students in his school’s Model United Nations club; a couple affected by a strange malady―a miniature city which has begun to develop in the young woman’s chest, these inventive stories are hilarious, heartbreaking, and unusual. While many of them have never been previously published, others have been featured in the likes of LIT, Other Voices, Swink, TriQuarterly, and McSweeney’s.

JOE MENO is a fiction writer and journalist who lives in Chicago. He is the winner of the Nelson Algren Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Great Lakes Book Award, and was a finalist for the Story Prize. He is the best-selling author of nine novels and two short story collections, including Marvel and a Wonder, Hairstyles of the Damned, and The Boy Detective Fails. His nonfiction book on US asylum, Between Everything and Nothing, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and one of Kirkus Reviews’s Best Books of the Year. Meno is a professor in the School of Communication and Culture at Columbia College Chicago.