God Telling a Joke and Other Stories

God Telling a Joke and Other Stories is a collection of new stories by the author of Bix’s Trumpet and Other Stories, named Book of the Year at the Saskatchewan Book Awards. Among the characters in the collection’s 16 stories are a 99-year-old stand-up comedian wearily challenging God to deliver the punch line; a lightning strike survivor whose luck finally runs out; a Princeton-educated trapper who transforms himself into the King of the Jews; a young Second World War veteran unable to talk another vet out of suicide; a carnival sideshow “geek” with a glass jaw; a stroke victim who suffers a different type of heart attack; and a writer dubbed by an award jury as “a connoisseur of longing.” The stories range from laugh-out-loud comedy to wry satire to heart-wrenching romance to sober meditations on the nature of beauty, truth, life and death. The stories show Margoshes, a master story-teller, at the top of his game.