The Devil You Know

"Jenn Farrell's smart, observant stories about desire and escape take us to the places we're all afraid to admit we've been. Read The Devil You Know with greed and a hot, pleasurable hint of guilt---Sally Cooper author of Love Object and Tell Everything" "There are points in Jenn Farrell's amazing collection that I felt like I was listening in on the most intimate conversations of strangers---I was rapt with attention, but almost guilty for being privy to such intimacy. The Devil You Know treads familiar territory---small town ennui, adolescent love, grief and self-destruction---but does it with such emotional acuity that it doesn't feel familiar at all, it feels extraordinary---Catherine Hanrahan author of Lost Girls and Love Hotels" "Make no mistake; The Devil You Know belongs on the shelf alongside Nights Below Station Street. In this confident, insightful, often horrifyingly funny collection, Jenn Farrell distinguishes herself as one of Canada's finest contemporary writers of short fiction. Here are working class family dramas boiled down to the bone. Quick and mean as a Virginia Slim and bright and harsh as a Rexall at midnight, Farrell never fails to bring us down to earth to meet those beautiful, flawed, undeniably human devils we know so well. Refreshingly honest, impeccably written. A very, very good book---Elizabeth Bachinsky author of Home of Sudden Service" "The Devil You Know is the follow-up volume to Farrell's critically acclaimed debut collection, Sugar Bush & Other Stories." These stories deal with sex, love, work, birth, and death in alternately moving, shocking, funny, and at times devastating ways. Whether these characters are facing the death of a parent, bad love choices, the possibility of unwanted pregnancy, the rupture of friendships, teen violence, or the exploration of sado-masochistic sex, Farrell exposes their ticking cores and pulls the reader along every step of the way.