The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure

Laugh-out-loud funny and dripping with style, this debut collection of stories holds a fun house mirror to the everyday lives of characters as empathetic as they are absurd.

From the self-appointed historian of the title piece to the wage slaves of "Our Spring Catalog" and "The Pipe," these are characters you’ve met before. They’re quirky visionaries and misguided dreamers sprung from a world of high school ambitions and misunderstood intentions. Laugh-out-loud funny, absurd, and always human, Jack Pendarvis’s debut collection is the work of a writer of rare comedic literary talent.