Genre: Memoir/Short
Story Collection
Description:
“Sooner or later, everyone comes face to face with a fiasco—even the
innocent, angelic types like Miss Nude Canada circa 1986. Generally speaking,
fiascos, which thankfully come in many different forms, are events where the
caca hits the fan; there’s failure, breakdown or catastrophe of some sort and
everything just slithers off of the rails in a sickening, sideways fashion.
Human idiocy, in all of its glorious manifestations, is often the fiasco’s
prime catalyst with ego-squashing humiliation its necessary outcome.
Fiasco-prone humans with an above-average surplus of caca-splattered fan-blades
in their closets have many (sordid) tales to tell. Mr Pearson, the floor is all
yours ….
Strap yourself in tightly for a compelling and entertaining, emotional
and geographical roller coaster ride of epic proportions as Mr. Pearson makes
his way rather randomly through the labyrinth of young adulthood and beyond.
With cheeky wit and a swashbuckler’s flourish with the language, the devil is
alive and thriving in the details as candid confessions of either maximum
intoxication levels or a cyclic battle with upper-chamber malfunctions, and the
resulting adventures, some immensely comical and others deeply poignant or
troubling, leave one reeling with disbelief. Many of the author’s stories are
just plain, freaking crazy, setting up the reader wanting for the madness to
never end. And the others will leave you stunned and bruised—or rubbing away
tears with a finger. So step right up, gather your courage and try on Miss Nude
Canada’s Shoes (And Other Fiascos). Yes, they will be soaked in beer—but a
prediction: you’ll be so impressed as to how well they fit that you’ll never
want to take them off!”
Author:
“Jeff Pearson was born in Pembroke, Ontario, Canada in 1963 and
attended Carleton and Lakehead Universities where he mostly majored in Maximum
Intoxication / Fiasco Production. Then he went vagabond—rambling / exploring /
travelling / working—for years … all over Canada and beyond. He kept detailed
journals and has been writing down something or other for over thirty years:
poetry, short stories, song lyrics, a novel and now a memoir. For the past
twenty years he has been manning various fire towers deep in the Canadian
wilderness. Miss Nude Canada’s Shoes (And Other Fiascos) – A Memoir, a
grand compilation of a whole heap of madness—inside and out—is his inaugural
presentation to a world of insatiable readers.”
Appraisal:
From his bio you’d get the impression that when the author isn’t
hanging out at a fire tower in the wilderness areas of Canada or working to put
out one of the fires that have started that he’s getting drunk and/or stoned,
narrowly avoiding serious trouble, and raising hell somewhere. Reading this
book will do nothing to dissuade that opinion. This book is like a short story
collection with one big difference, the stories are true. Call it an episodic
memoir. You’ll find out about Mr Pearson getting drunk and raising heck (okay,
maybe that other place) in various Canadian cities, small towns in Canada, and
even taking his show on the road in the US and Mexico. I think he’d be fun to
hang out with while BSing and tossing back a few brews. Reading this book allowed
me to do that vicariously while decreasing my chance of arrest. That’s
something I don’t think I’ve ever said about a book before.
FYI:
Some adult language and subjects.
Format/Typo
Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: ****
Four Stars
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate
word count: 60-65,000 words
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