John Metcalf was Senior Editor at the Porcupine's Quill until 2005, and is now Fiction Editor at Biblioasis. A scintillating writer, a magisterial editor, and a noted anthologist, he is the author of more than a dozen works of fiction and non-fiction, including Standing Stones: Selected Stories, Adult Entertainment, Going Down Slow and Kicking Against the Pricks. He lives in Ottawa with his wife, Myrna.

“These four related fictions follow a British boy's coming-of-age and his older self enduring a world that rarely lives up to his standards ... Brings to mind variously Wodehouse, Waugh, [and] Kingsley Amis ... This is a book that could restore anyone's faith in the pleasure of reading.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)