My clients started the bad habit of pointing at strangers and calling them birdy heads! Most people will forgive the rantings of people with Down syndrome, but these strangers were not having it. My apologies didn't do much to assuage the victims of the name-calling, and I soon found out why. What I discovered was that they were, in effect, "different" from the rest of us, and I snooped to find out why. I almost wished I hadn't, because the realization of who or what they were set a whole chain reaction of chaos and disasters, including my crimes of kidnapping and murder and fleeing for our lives. In the course of our running from the strangers, the law, and others, we found friends, allies, and a lot of enemies. But I couldn't run away from the truth, no matter how much it cost me, us.

Regina Rheda is a contemporary award-winning Brazilian writer whose original voice and style have won her many admirers. First World Third Class and Other Tales of the Global Mix presents some of her finest and most representative work to an English-speaking readership. Stories from the Copan Building consists of eight tales set in a famous residential building in São Paulo. The stories, like the apartment complex, are a microcosm of modern-day urban Brazil. They are witty, consistently caustic, and never predictable. Also in this volume is the poignant and often hilarious novel First World Third Class. It depicts young middle-class professionals and artists who, as opportunities in Brazil diminished, opted to leave their country, even if it meant taking menial jobs abroad. At the center of the narrative is Rita, a thirty-year-old aspiring filmmaker who migrates to England, and then Italy. She looks for work and love in all the wrong places, moving from city to city and from bed to bed. The last three stories in this collection also happen to be among the author's most recent. "The Enchanted Princess" is an ironic title for a postfeminist tale of a South American woman being wooed to marry an old-world gentleman who promises to take care of her every need. "The Sanctuary" concerns the living conditions of immigrant workers and farm animals. Equally piquant in nature, "The Front" deals with ecology, labor environments, and gender politics.

An Edgar Award Nominee for Best First Novel “Dark and dangerous and strange and wonderful...Kennedy writes with the gritty poetry of Daniel Woodrell and misfit sensibility of Flannery O’Connor.” —Benjamin Percy Deborah Kennedy tells the story of a five-year old girl who goes missing in a small town, a place where everyone knows something different about her disappearance and about each other. Five-year-old Daisy Gonzalez’s father is always waiting for her at the bus stop. But today, he isn’t, and Daisy disappears. When Daisy goes missing, nearly everyone in town suspects or knows something different about what happened. And they also know a lot about each other. The immigrants who work in the dairy farm know their employers’ secrets. The hairdresser knows everything except what’s happening in her own backyard. And the roadkill collector knows love and heartbreak more than anyone would ever expect. They are all connected, in ways small and profound, open and secret. By turns unsettling, dark, and wry, Kennedy’s powerful voice brings the town’s rich fabric to life. Tornado Weather is an affecting portrait of a complex and flawed cast of characters striving to find fulfillment in their lives – and Kennedy brilliantly shows that there is nothing average about an average life.

"How Coppola Became Cage chronicles Nicolas Cage's early career and rise to fame, examining the formative performances that made him an icon of independent cinema in the 1980s and early 1990s. Drawing on more than 100 new interviews with Cage's collaborators-including filmmakers David Lynch, John Patrick Shanley, Mike Figgis, Martha Coolidge, and Amy Heckerling-this book offers a revealing portrait of Cage's origin story as a member of the Coppola family, his early roles in low-budget teen films, and his rise to stardom with memorable performances in cult films like Raising Arizona, Moonstruck, and Wild at Heart. The book examines how Cage drew on influences as eclectic as silent cinema and German Expressionism while displaying an intense commitment to his performances both on- and off-screen. The book demystifies the actor's onscreen eccentricities and argues that his commercial failures are as interesting as his successes. How Coppola Became Cage meticulously traces Cage's career from 1981, when he was a young drama student at Beverly Hills High, to 1995, when he gave an Oscar-winning performance as a suicidal alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas."--

In the last city in the world, a young woman tries to find the truth when everything she’s ever been told is a lie… When females reach adulthood in Gale City, they’re given the chance to compete at Showcase for the honor of becoming surrogates for the Morbihan—a highly intelligent, obese race of people unable to procreate naturally. All the other girls are excited to become hosts, but not Megan Skyla. Convinced there’s more to life than living under the control of the enigmatic Centrals, Skyla teams up with an unlikely friend and they go in search of a cure for the Morbihan condition. But things don’t go according to plan and their journey becomes a harrowing quest fraught with danger and deceit. She is about to discover that freedom has a price and she’s going to have to fight to survive…

This collection of seven stories encompasses a variety of themes, moods, backgrounds, and laughter -provoking incidents. With penetrating wit and insight Mr. Bonner explores the lived of desperate people who are zany, outlandish, somewhat tainted, and can't do anything right- even when their very lives depend on it.