Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys is a new collection of
corkscrewed tales from the author of Great Apes.
The Guardian (London) describes Will Self as "a wayward genius," and
you can find out why when you observe the author's pitiless dissection
of the foibles of men, women, and the Volvo 760 Turbo.
Self's world is a no-funhouse of warped mirrors. A man is seduced into a
misanthropically charged symbiosis with the insects infesting his
cottage; he has entered "Flytopia."
In "A Story for Europe," a two-year-old English child utters his first
halting words...in business German.
In "Caring, Sharing," status-conscious New Yorkers navigate the perils
of dating along with their very literal inner children.
In "The Rock of Crack as Big as the Ritz," a black Londoner discovers an
enormous rock of crack cocaine underpinning his house and quickly turns
it into an efficient little empire.
In the title story, a psychoanalyst strips away all the sangfroid of his
professionalism to find beneath...precisely nothing.
And in the short novella The Nonce Prize, a man framed for a sex crime
he didn't commit finds that his only way out is to win a short-story
competition.
Sharp, funny, and packed with verbal fireworks, Tough, Tough Toys for
Tough, Tough Boys confirms yet again Will Self's stature as one of the
most accomplished and original writers of his generation.
