The Mountie at Niagara Falls is an astonishingly absurd and humorous collection of brief stories from Toronto author Salvatore Difalco. Ranging in length from fifty to seven hundred words, these vital and sudden fictional forays transport the reader to worlds both big and small: a land where green goats roam, voodoo dolls inflict crushing migraine headaches, a typographer from South Porcupine kills a potential love affair with a discussion of sans serif type, a benevolent judge imparts clemency on an admittedly violent man, and the road of experience turns this way and that for a truffle-snuffing boar and a talking cat.
These brief tales are alternately fantastic, humorous, menacing, contemplative, absurd, hallucinatory, violent, confessional, and always provocative.
Illustrations by Francesco Gallé.
“A master of the miniature, Sal Difalco’s micro-fictions achieve a wry resonance that longer efforts often miss. They are simultaneously concrete and whimsical, ranging from a woman with the head of a fish, to ballroom dancing lessons, to a pair of thieves in Brian Mulroney masks. Each story is as sharp as a slap. An eloquent and exciting read.”
—Grant Buday, author of Dragonflies and Rootbound
“Salvatore Difalco’s stories are small miracles: fresh, literate, startling, and a bit off-kilter, like something seen in a dream or out of the corner of your eye.”
—Stephen Osborne, Geist
Salvatore Difalco currently resides in Toronto. He is the author of Black Rabbit & Other Stories (Anvil). His short stories, essays, book reviews, and poker columns have appeared in publications across Canada and the USA.
