The Cloaca

by Andrew Hood

The stories included in Andrew Hood’s sophomore collection are beautiful, gross, funny, and personal. The Cloaca is a train wreck of awesomeness. It’s your high school gym coach, drunk and dishing dirt on all the other teachers on the crosstown bus-a stomach-turning spectacle that’ll make you laugh out loud now, feel bad later. You won’t be able to look away for an instant.

Genres: Fiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2012

Reviews

[Jim Pownall]

Bought this for 99p on my new Kindle (so if you want a quick impulse purchase, go grab it!). I'm glad I did buy it. Read it in 2 or 3 days and loved it. A fast-paced collection of stories, where each one ends with a clear resolution. I'm not a short story guy typically, but by the halfway point of each story, I was typically sucked in (both emotionally and invested in the story). Good work, Andrew Hood! I'm going to get your other books. The Jim Guthrie one sounds up my street.

[Samantha]

Really good! I'm not a huge fan of short stories in general, but these ones were complicated and interesting and crass and sensitive. A good anthology, and I always love recognizing place names in stories from authors who have lived in the same places as me.

[Sancho Bennebello]

Stars are silly. I'm enjoying these stories.

[woody]

Easy read, not too profound in that shitty way, a good piece of literature when you're sick of other Canadian authors who are so dry and tedious

[Jeff Bursey]

Three and a half stars, really. More on this later.