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Stranger Will Kindle Edition
| Price | New from | Used from |
Ages 18 +
Neo-Noir
Thriller
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateMarch 17, 2011
- File size541 KB
Editorial Reviews
Review
Just like a Palahniuk novel, Stranger Will reads volatile: it could go any way. Caleb J. Ross leads you with a wry smile into dark places...You will follow him anywhere. --Alan Emmins, author of Mop Men: Inside the World of Crime Scene Cleaners
This is one paranoid, challenging, beautiful, and pitch-dark book. I'm a little afraid of this Ross guy now; but I'll also read anything he writes. --Paul Tremblay, author of The Little Sleep and In The Mean Time
Caleb J Ross is a dangerous writer...you are letting [him] into your mind at your own risk. --Jeremy Robert Johnson, author of Angel Dust Apocalypse and Extinction Journals
More nihilistic than a chainsaw-wielding midget who wants to be the tallest man on Earth. --adley Sands, author of Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy and editor of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens
From the Inside Flap
William works as a human remains removal specialist, removing stains left by the dead. Whether by a bloody crime scene or a quiet domestic death, William is reminded each day of the frailty of human life. As his fiancée, Julie, nears term with their first child William becomes increasingly desperate for a way to overcome his belief that to birth is to kill.
But Mrs. Rose, an elementary school principal and messenger pigeon hobbyist, nurtures William's depressive outlook and claims to have a way to prove that William's hesitancy toaccept fatherhood is not only natural but necessary.
About the Author
Homepage: calebjross.com
Twitter: @calebjross
Facebook: Facebook.com/rosscaleb.
Product details
- ASIN : B004SPJZ6I
- Publisher : Otherworld Publications, LLC; 1st edition (March 17, 2011)
- Publication date : March 17, 2011
- Language : English
- File size : 541 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Not Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 188 pages
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Caleb J. Ross is an author and a lifelong gamer whose fiction and non-fiction have appeared widely, both online and in print. As a hobbyist indie game developer and video game obsessive, Caleb has produced hundreds of visual essays, editorials, and comedy videos on YouTube and has co-hosted many video game podcasts with the goal to evangelize for the video game medium, a medium that has changed his life.
Customer reviews
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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I am still going "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot what did I just finish reading? WAIT not reading EXPERIENCING?!" Now, I am going to do something different, I am going to rate it first...
Five hundred million Bottles of Awesomesauce - there is nothing more, not even bacon at this point!!
If language offends you(I cleaned it up for you Amazon) ... I really wanted to apologize ahead of time but I can't! I tried to write this straight, but I can't! I am still dealing with dropped jaw syndrome! So...*shrugging shoulders* this book would probably not be something you could handle if the occasional F*** bothered you anyway. It takes balls to take this book on! And I know a lot of you have them, so strap them on ladies and hitch them up, gentlemen and take it on, you will NOT be disappointed. Do not eat before you read, hug your children and be happy with your decision to breed and enter a world that extrapolates to the extreme 'WHAT IF" and, what the F***! and most importantly? Be careful what you wish for, sometimes someone really can grant your wishes, even if you didn't mean it!
Ever read one of those books that sticks to you brain pan like duct tape on a shaved cats butt.. oh wait that may not mean something to all of you ummm OK that sticks like extra strength duct tape, let's leave it at that! It is the foundation for a myriad of messed up bad dreams and unsettled sleep for the last week. I am deeply and quite deliciously disturbed by this. It has darkness in it, it oozes and gushes epically awesome frightening darkness. All manner of messed up people live in this town where our protagonist Will now lives. And he is in charge of cleaning up behind their worthless lives.
He has a f-ed up but necessary job, he is a human remains removal expert. Car accidents, decomposing bodies stuck to their E-Z chairs... its.. fragrant and ripe with festive insanity. But the bodies are not there just what is left behind. We all wonder what kind of mark we will make in this world and I do not think any of you imagine it will be the puddle of decomp jelly where your fat butt fell asleep watching Jeopardy and stuffing Ho-hos in your gullet. Or spread across the scene that can be hosed away on the interstate. Give up your dreams and forget about clean underwear because it won't matter at this point.
NOTHING I have read can compare to this except maybe the Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille . Georges may have a 21th century brainchild in Caleb J. Ross and Georges is called the "metaphysician of evil," specializing in blasphemy, profanation, and horror."
Throughout all of this Will is dealing with a pregnant fiance whom he is trying to convince to be rid of the child of before term or if at term to give up. It is full deep imbibing metaphors to immerse your psyche in. It has dark, cruel comedy, he is pretty much a top-notch prick to his fiance and shes obsessed with the belief everything he does and comes in contact with is a health risk to the unborn child. The cleaning supplies he uses coats his clothes, the cigarettes he chain smokes, now outside for her. Well for him, because he does not want to deal with her complaining. I haven't read a book like this, ever!
Yet, just when I hate this guy, just when I start climbing on my fancy feminist F***-off wagon? He does something showing heart. He feels bad.. he doesn't talk about what he has to do or what his cleanup will be. He convinces himself it is because he doesn't want to deal with her wrath but there is a part of him that is soft enough to remember why they are together. At least that is my warm fuzzy place I have to think about so when he lights a bird on fire and I am right back on the feminist F***-off wagon I do not pull both guns.
My mouth is still hanging open when I think back on what I read. There is one scene that will forever be burnt into my soul, wait a lot more than one..but the first really horrific scene is a house which has a perfectly maintained lawn in a neighborhood of perfectly maintained lawns and houses, but this house? It is falling to pieces like a forgotten and neglected elderly family member. There was so many symbols seeping from pipes and filling up the basement. Melville would have had a field day with the symbolic iconography in just the kitchen alone. I.. I... I want to tell you so much but I am afraid if I do you would miss out on the shock, which like my swear words is necessary Oh Em Gee try it for yourself, seriously! *mouth hangs open, head shakes, looks at the cat and whispers..." Seriously Asrielle, maybe I better take the squirrel in residence some folks may come after me but then again some folks may be sending me pounds and pounds of bacon!"
Now, I have to leave you here. I probably could go on another 1ooo words because I have not even gone back over in my brain what happens a bit before you hit the halfway mark, or the playing catch with one of the short-bus kids and a decomposing racoon. (do not even go there, there is no way I can be politically correct while trying to explain this. Plus, the short-bus kid? He captures the heart of Will along with me!) Just trust me. Oh and I did not mention the twisted idea of a fairy godmother who leads all this merry mayhem. I would choose her as a fairy godmother mind you she is more like Satan's spawn of a godmother!
Saying Stranger Will is compelling is the understatement of the year. The main character, William, removes the stains the dead leave behind, literally. William's whole life is calls at 3 am in the morning, chemicals in the back of a van working into his pores, his life. He's in a dead-end job and in a marriage teetering on failing miserably. His pregnant wife is focused on their soon to be born child while he is focused on spending as much time away from her as possible. The harsh reality settles in: When all you see is death, what's the point? A principal of the local elementary school takes William under her wing, determined to show him there is another way. Her group is intent on making the world perfect, one child at a time. Once William is in the group, he realizes perfection isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Quality fiction is both compelling and unpredictable. It's also dangerous, which is why we read it. Ross writes with all of these factors in mind. From the first pages, he takes you by the hand, leading you down dark corridors where you really don't want to go, but you're unable to turn away. And when you look back at him, and he gives you that sly grin, you know that you have to walk the path, there is no turning back because you're in too deep. Fiction 101 dictates we know our characters, and it's obvious Caleb has spent a lot of time with his story people. Readers seek out this intimacy and relish the thrill when they find it. Consider yourselves warned. Caleb writes with an intelligence and depth far beyond his years, and his words will scar your heart forever.