Suburban Pornography is contemporary literature, which documents Canadian urban life in a raw and naked manner. The prose is stripped—minimalist, direct, urgent, unflinching. The stories revolve around ordinary characters and problems—people stuck in bad relationships or jobs. Some yearn for something just beyond their grasp, something authentic to knock them out of their malaise. Their frailties and obsessions are front and centre. They are garbage men, bus drivers, waitresses, soup kitchen clients, and neighbourhood perverts—tired and busy, too weary to contemplate—from social conditions that sanction only mere existence in redemption’s agony and fleeting glory.
MATTHEW FIRTH lives in Ottawa. He doesn’t divide his time in any other city or town. He lives a life centred on love, lacrosse, beer, books, old-timers hockey, community, and family. He is the author of four short story collections, including Shag Carpet Action and Suburban Pornography (both published by Anvil Press). He is a regular contributor to subTerrain magazine, where he writes the ever-softening column Crank ’n File. Asking for Directions is his first full-length collection of poems.
