Carl Versus the Men from Mars: Bombast, Drivel, Odds and Ends

Dark, absurd… and totally weird. In ten comic stories that fluctuate between chaos and poignancy, Chicago writer Sheppard delivers a perception of America that is not only dark and peculiar—it is also horribly funny. In the adult Carl stories, the grill cook’s travels lead to run-ins with drunks, a just-released convict, the burly daughter of a diner owner, a literate runaway, a brain-damaged veteran and men’s encounter group thugs. His childhood stories present a vision of eccentric family life that is both irreverent and surprisingly moving. Other stories feature soldiers coming to grips with the tedium of their mission in West Germany near the end of the Cold War; a baker whose decision to leave his high-paying job as an engineer drives his wife into the arms of a student dentist; and an unemployed mathematician who finds himself caught between his stern nurse-mother and his itinerant father at the beginning of a new Great Depression.