Chris Gudgeon – författare

Greetings from the off-kilter world of Chris Gudgeon. In his first-ever book of fiction, the bestselling author of The Naked Truth: The Untold History of Sex in Canada offers postcard glimpses into the quirky private lives of unusually twisted characters. A prim English bride honeymooning near the so-called Vodka Sea learns the hard way why it's better not to drink the water in foreign parts. A chess-playing doctor loses his wife to a charismatic psychologist during a sensuous group sex session masquerading as therapy. A social climbing adulterer contemplates the seduction of a middle-aged woman he once loved but who may now expose him. Personal histories rub up against present relationships. Paths cross, whether by accident or design. Polished veneers hide deeper truths.Bitterly funny and filled with lusty, rueful, comical, calculating, and even affectionate sex, Gudgeon's eleven cosmopolitan stories explore the chasm between loving and being loved in return. Life's randomness is offset by dark comedy and by an eerily familiar synchronicity.

Some days, it doesn't pay to be a lapsed pretend Buddhist... particularly when you're charged with a lengthy list of war crimes. Vida Zanković has done many things to stay alive. A wily young man caught in the insanity of the Balkan wars, Vida has dealt drugs, been forced to join the army, and then deserted when he tried to save a young boy trapped beneath a mountain of corpses. Being accused of genocide, however, forces Vida into a whole new level of surrealism.In Song of Kosovo, Chris Gudgeon exposes the universal human experience like never before, fashioning a satirical world where one earns a following as a levitating holy man while the US Air Force drops "bombs" of condoms, candy, and Ikea pillows to subvert the populace.Weaving strands of Balkan mythology and history, threading them through the life of a man who only wnats to live out his days with the woman he loves, Gudgeon crafts a tanscendent tale at once grotesque and absurd, satiric and tragic, touching and real. As much Catch-22 as De Niro's Game, Song of Kosovo is a unique examination of how ideas may rise above reality to drive world events and how a nation caught in the grip of conflict may ultimately earn a sense of itself.

Money. Gobs of it. In the blink of an eye - or the drop of a ball— it''s all yours.Everyone dreams about striking it rich by winning a lottery. We all feverishly line up to purchase our tickets, and watch TV or scan the newspapers to see if we have won, even though the odds are better that we will be struck by lightning. Still, we perservere, because no matter what else happens this week, you can be sure that someone, somewhere, will win the big one.Lotteries are an unparalleled popular phenomenon. But what happens after the winners are revealed, and the checks have been issued? How does winning a lottery change one''s life?Luck of the Draw profiles past winners of big lotteries, and how their windfall impacted their lives, mostly for the better, but interestingly sometimes for the worse, such was the case of a Florida widow who won $5 million in 1984; three years later, she lost her mansion and fancy cars, and owed the IRS $500,000 for back taxes. Eventually she was arrested for trying to hire a contract killer to take out her daughter-in-law, whom she blamed for her lottery misfortune. The book also depicts the past, present and future of lotteries in North America and the world over, and includes a special chapter on the revived phenomenon of big-time TV game show winners. Who wants to be a millionaire? Seemingly, everyone.In a country where eighty percent of adults have played a lottery, creating a multi-billion dollar industry, Luck of the Draw is an insightful inside look at lotteries, its winners, and its losers.