Gargoyles by Bill Gaston (Writer's Festival Short Stories)

Nominated for the 2006 Governor General's Award for fiction, Gaston's latest collection of short stories is an interesting mix of the contemplative and the shocking, often with a dollop of black humour thrown in. In almost every story a character seems to go over the edge. There's the man in the title story who takes off all the doors of his house in order to make it look like a gigantic gargoyle which will ward off intruders. There's the father who decides it's time to put down the family's aging dog, and then decides he will honour his pet by eating his heart. And then there's Work-in-Progress, my personal favourite, where a writer goes on and on at his own author reading, finally ending up, the following morning, in a bizarre, pitched battle with the sole remaining audience member. Recommended for the adventurous short story fan.