Darrin Doyle

In 2007, Beck Randall moves with his wife and teenage daughters into a long-abandoned cabin deep in the woods, built a century before by his grandparents. Once there, daughters Tina and Lucy discover that their predecessors have left an imprint of suffering and violence the girls refer to as “The Whistler,” an eerie presence infused in the nature that surrounds them. As the 1907 and 2007 storylines braid together, characters and events intrude upon each other, blurring the boundaries between eras and illustrating that people and lives are not forgotten; instead, they are woven into the fabric of the land itself. With gritty, lyrical storytelling, Let Gravity Seize the Dead is an intergenerational literary horror story featuring a blend of suspense, beauty, and terror.

Sandy Kurtz has problems. He's got a baby on the way, his wife doesn't love him, and he's struggling to find passion or purpose at his big-box retail job. And, once a month, he turns into a werewolf. In Darrin Doyle's deft hands, Sandy's story is a tall tale for our times, an absurd and darkly comedic take on toxic masculinity, small-town America, and the terror of not knowing who you are--or who you're capable of becoming. Join us on the trip. Feel the power of the full moon as it turns you into a carnivore capable of ruling the wilds of rural Michigan. Taste the rich blood of a pulsing animal heart; feel it cascade down your face as you transform into what you always wanted to be. Enter...the wolf.

Novelist Christine Sneed writes that the stories in Darrin Doyle's new collection "are full of rich, complicated characters and unique, unusual situations. The dark humor and pathos in these highly imaginative stories reminded me of the brilliant films of David Lynch. If Lynch wrote short fiction, it would doubtless lurk in the same neighborhood as Darrin Doyle's." These five stories take us into the delusional minds of characters who are living on the edge (of society, of sanity, of presentability). Ultimately, their needs and desires feel surprisingly, disconcertingly familiar, but we're confronted in each case with an otherness of perspective that remains unsettling and reminds us of the ordinary distances between people and the difficulty of understanding even ourselves.

A man appears suspended in the air above a major American city. A foul-mouthed posse of machete-wielding scoundrels wreak havoc on a small-town mayor. A cocaine-addled boxer starts a torrid affair with the wife of the Invisible Man--who just might be watching (and enjoying) all the freakiness.Darrin Doyle's latest collection of short stories is an electrifying look at men behaving badly--or just being weird. Hilarious, madly inventive, and compellingly readable, this unforgettable collection will leave the reader disturbed, dazzled, delirious--and begging for more.

In this charming novel, Darrin Doyle paints a captivating portrait of the all-American family--if the all-American family's youngest child ate an entire city in Michigan with a smile, that is. Doyle has a flare for writing about family dysfunction with a twist. With a unique blend of realism and fantasy, The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo is the moving story of the hauntingly beautiful Audrey Mapes, who began her illustrious "career" by downing crayons by the carton only to graduate to eating an entire city one bite at a time. With vivid, acerbic wit, Doyle details the life of the world's most gifted "eatist" through the eyes of Audrey's sister, McKenna. Through her eyes, we see the real tragedy of the Mapes story is not the destruction of a city, but rather, the quiet disintegration of a family who just didn't quite know how to love.

Fifty-year-old science teacher Dale Portwit believes that the peak of his life has come and gone. A failed suicide, a food fetishist, so isolated that the Best Man at his wedding is a framed photograph of his former mailman, Mr. Portwit resolves to live entirely for the moment, to speak his mind at each turn no matter what the consequences. He sets his sights upon Mary Ann Tucker, Elkhart Elementary's plump, accommodating third-grade teacher. Their whirlwind courtship leads to wedding bands, a house in the suburbs, and an indulgent sex life - so why aren't they happy? Perhaps a little revenge is just what this marriage needs.Decidedly odd, yet also oddly moving, Revenge of the Teacher's Pet is a skillful mix of comedy, poignancy, love, memory, obesity, top-ten lists, fish, and murder.