Sad Stories of the Death of Kings (A Seven Stories Press 1st Edition)

Roy is a lover of adventure movies, a budding writer, and a young man slowly coming of age without the benefit of a father.

Surrounding himwhether to support him or to drag him underis the adult world of postwar Chicago, a city haunted by violence, poverty, and the redeeming power of imagination.

Here are charlatans, operators, alien abductees, schoolyard nudists, and fast girls with only months to live.

At the center of it all is a boy learning to navigate the compromises, disillusionments and regrets that come with the territory of living.

Mixing memoir and invention, the forty-one short stories in Barry Gifford's first book for young adults bring a cityand a boy's growing consciousnessto vivid, unflinching life.