‘Paul Glennon is a rare bird. You would never guess it from his photo on the final page of this debut collection. He stands quite ordinarily under a snowy spruce tree in what could easily be Ottawa, his home since 1975. Contextually Canadianized, he squarely faces the camera, quietly earnest and unthreatening. It’s a perfectly expected portrait of a fledgling Canuck writer -- and perfectly misleading. This bird’s song is complex, refreshingly impudent and previously unknown.’
Paul Glennon makes a commanding debut with a writing style that is both quirky and elusive. His stories -- strange, yet funny -- are about madmen, paranoiacs and the allegorically burdened. For the characters in these stories life is a board game to which we have lost, or perhaps never had, the instructions. Their predicaments are impossible, absurd but strangely genuine. A husband wonders if his wife has always been made of wood. A scientist suspects his left hand is plotting against him. A tourist visits a museum dedicated to his own failed romance. The world is trying to communicate something to these characters, but they cannot interpret it.
These stories navigate an unusual course between science fiction, satire and psychology. It makes for a journey that is strange, disturbing and surreally comic.