Dreamers and Misfits of Montclair

by Mark Paterson

Wise and humorous stories that explore people’s extraordinary lives in suburbia’s little wild spaces.

Routinely maligned as a bastion of boredom and conformity, the suburb is examined in a different light in Dreamers and Misfits of Montclair. At the heart of these fourteen short stories is refusal of the monotonous and the struggle for individuality in a place so relentlessly homogenous. In his third short story collection, Mark Paterson introduces the town of Montclair, a fictional suburb in the North Shore of Montreal, where he celebrates characters who, out of restlessness, out of nothing, make their lives on the outskirts of the big city a little bit – or a lot – out of the ordinary. With Paterson’s trademark humour and emotion, Dreamers and Misfits of Montclair explores suburbia’s little wild spaces: the places hidden away in overgrown fields behind commercial buildings, beneath concrete schoolyard staircases, and in the hearts and minds of its inhabitants.

202 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2019

About the author

Mark Paterson is the author of the short story collections A Finely Tuned Apathy Machine , Other People's Showers , and, most recently, Dreamers and Misfits of Montclair . His work has won the 3Macs carte blanche Prize, Geist magazine's Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest, and the Atwater Library's 150 Words for 150 Years flash fiction contest. In 2020, his story "To Disappear Around Here" was named runner-up for the Thomas Morton Prize (fiction category).

Reviews

[Stephen Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great collection of stories set in the authors high school years of 80's West-End Montreal. Recommended.