Dark Rides : A Novel in Stories by Derek McCormack

Dark Rides is like the best carnival dark ride you've ever been on: funny and frightening, short and shocking. Dark Rides is a collection of stories about gay teenagers growing up in a small city in Canada in the 1950's.
 
There's a different kid in each of the stories: the kid that loves Hank Williams, the kid that works at a haunted hayride, the kid that thinks he's Caligula and so on. They don't meet, but they share similar attributes: they're all named Derek McCormack, and they all fall for the wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Published for the first time in 1996, Dark Rides was Derek McCormack's first book. This thirtieth anniversary edition features new illustrations and a firework by Lisa Robinson. 
 
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'A fresh thrilling, perfect book' - Dennis Cooper
 
'Welcome to the perverse and innocent world of Derek McCormack. The mystery of objects, the lyricism of neglected lives, the menace and nostalgia of the past - there are all ingredients in this weird and parallel universe' - Edmund White 
 
'Derek McCormack is a genius of prose that is driven and artificial. In Dark Rides, homo-hormones ask our teen hero Derek the questions and deliver the answer - SEX. Derek's small town hardscrabble world is suffused with sparkling off-hand clarity as he undergoes the tender and menacing rituals of the high school closet' - Roberts Glück