The Tiki King

<div> <p>A Lebanese housewife a former horror-film maker and a cantankerous Russian librarian are among the inhabitants of the offbeat world found in this impressive debut collection. <b>Stacy Tintocalis</b>'s stories take us from a defunct women's shelter off a Missouri country road to the streets of low-income Hollywood where her characters yearn for the love that is always just out of reach.</p> <p>The title story explores the conflicted emotions an adolescent boy feels toward a father who obsessively returns to his childhood home. In Too Bad about Howie a divorced poet finds comfort in stolen moments with his ex-wife's dog. Despite their longing for connection these characters are victims of their own foibles trapped in terrifying moments of psychic violence that risk driving away the very people they love.</p> </div>