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Grab Bag
Grab Bag is comprised of two interrelated novels, Dark Rides and Wish Book , from one of Canada’s most important young writers. Both books are set in the same small rural city, in different eras (1950s, 1930s), each characterized by McCormack’s spare and elliptical prose.
Derek McCormack’s journalism has appeared in many publications across North America, including nest , Saturday Night , and the National Post . In 2001, he was nominated for a National Magazine Award for an article he wrote on Halloween. Wild Mouse, a book McCormack co-authored with poet Chris Chambers, was nominated for the 1999 Toronto Book Award. His new novella, The Haunted Hillbilly , will be published in Canada by ECW Press in Fall 2003.
Derek McCormack’s journalism has appeared in many publications across North America, including nest , Saturday Night , and the National Post . In 2001, he was nominated for a National Magazine Award for an article he wrote on Halloween. Wild Mouse, a book McCormack co-authored with poet Chris Chambers, was nominated for the 1999 Toronto Book Award. His new novella, The Haunted Hillbilly , will be published in Canada by ECW Press in Fall 2003.
204 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 23, 2008
How much do I love this book? I have it autographed by Derek McComrack. A painfully short collection of that center mainly around Halloween. The stories tend to be have an unsettling no-frills Middle America (or Canadian) tone mixed with medical accidents, pervert bakers, dangerous childhoods. The best explanation I can give (not very good) is a combination of Raymond Carver and John Waters.
August 29, 2024
Not for me. Simple as that.
May 8, 2012
Book Title: "Grab Bag”
Author: Derek McCormack
Published By: Little House on the Bowery/Akashic Books
Age Recommended: 18+
Reviewed By: Kitty Bullard
Raven Rating: 5
Review: Yet another interesting and intriguing read from one of the authors at Akashic Books. “Grab Bag” was exactly what it promised to be, one short story and a ‘grab bag’ of various tales that ranged from humorous to somewhat macabre. These stories are sure to have you asking…. “Why?” “What the heck?” and “Seriously?” Still you can’t help but find them superbly intriguing.
Warning: There are moments of intimacy that many may not wish to read. Do not get a copy of this book if you are easily offended.
Author: Derek McCormack
Published By: Little House on the Bowery/Akashic Books
Age Recommended: 18+
Reviewed By: Kitty Bullard
Raven Rating: 5
Review: Yet another interesting and intriguing read from one of the authors at Akashic Books. “Grab Bag” was exactly what it promised to be, one short story and a ‘grab bag’ of various tales that ranged from humorous to somewhat macabre. These stories are sure to have you asking…. “Why?” “What the heck?” and “Seriously?” Still you can’t help but find them superbly intriguing.
Warning: There are moments of intimacy that many may not wish to read. Do not get a copy of this book if you are easily offended.
October 5, 2023
So bad, and a waste of my time. There were little glimmers here and there that were cute or made me laugh...but it's all style, shock and no substance. I would have absolutely loved the Halloweenish themes here--carnies, snake oil salesmen, 1940s-50s, gay sex, poisoning people, taxidermy, weird roadside surgery--if they were developed into an actual narrative, not a pile of super-clipped vignettes that don't add up to anything. Or a cleverly illustrated graphic novel of these vignettes would have been 1000x better.
April 21, 2025
it was like getting a toothbrush in my trick or treat bag
December 25, 2012
Gerry B's Book Review - http://www.gerrycan.wordpress.com
As Halloween approaches I looked around for something along this line, and quite by accident I found Derek McCormack’s Grab Bag [Akashic Books, 2004], edited by Dennis Cooper, which expanded my knowledge of Canadian writers (always a happy occurrence!)
Derek McCormack is one of those treasures that Canada and the Canadian literati keep hidden under a bushel. It is probably due to the GBLT content of his works, which, as a genre, has yet to be anointed for consideration by any of the major awards.[1] Indeed, when Dark Rides was first published, Globe and Mail’s book critic, Laura McDonald, had this to say:
Derek McCormack’s first published work, Dark Rides, was released in Canada this summer to little notice. It had three problems: It was slim, it was issued by a small press and its writer was unknown. Fortunately for McCormack and his readers, Dark Rides received more ink in the U.S. where, to be fair, there is more ink. Detour magazine even included him in its ‘Top Thirty Artists Under Thirty’ list. Why? Well, cynics might dismiss the book as trendy – a gay coming-of-age story. But anyone who reads the book closely will attribute the success to his skillful, tight-rope walking prose.
– Laura MacDonald, Globe & Mail
Grab Bag is a combining of two McCormack novellas, Wish Book and Dark Rides. Wish Book is set in the depression era of the 1930s, and is a bizarre romp through as list of situations and circumstances that defy probability, and yet could have happened.
Dark Rides is set in the 1950s (an era I am nostalgically familiar with) and is the story of a teenage, Canadian farm boy trying to come to grips with his homosexuality. Regretfully he has less than a minimum of sophistication and no one to turn to in a small, roughneck community. It is a dark plot in some ways, and yet it is humorous on account of his naiveté.
My views
I once read that successful writing is at once unique and universal, and this applies fairly well to McCormack’s style. It has a refreshing difference that almost defies comparison, and yet I was able to identify with the farm boy’s naive character quite well. Even the small community and its denizens were familiar to me.
Journalistically, McCormack is a minimalist. There is no superfluity or long poetic narratives here, only the bare minimum to tell the story and define the characters. Yet they were as developed as any I have read. They are a young farm boy and a ‘slicker,’ base individuals in a loveable way, and so too much development would clutter the picture.
Grab Bag is one of those stories that will stay with me long after I put it down. Five bees.
As Halloween approaches I looked around for something along this line, and quite by accident I found Derek McCormack’s Grab Bag [Akashic Books, 2004], edited by Dennis Cooper, which expanded my knowledge of Canadian writers (always a happy occurrence!)
Derek McCormack is one of those treasures that Canada and the Canadian literati keep hidden under a bushel. It is probably due to the GBLT content of his works, which, as a genre, has yet to be anointed for consideration by any of the major awards.[1] Indeed, when Dark Rides was first published, Globe and Mail’s book critic, Laura McDonald, had this to say:
Derek McCormack’s first published work, Dark Rides, was released in Canada this summer to little notice. It had three problems: It was slim, it was issued by a small press and its writer was unknown. Fortunately for McCormack and his readers, Dark Rides received more ink in the U.S. where, to be fair, there is more ink. Detour magazine even included him in its ‘Top Thirty Artists Under Thirty’ list. Why? Well, cynics might dismiss the book as trendy – a gay coming-of-age story. But anyone who reads the book closely will attribute the success to his skillful, tight-rope walking prose.
– Laura MacDonald, Globe & Mail
Grab Bag is a combining of two McCormack novellas, Wish Book and Dark Rides. Wish Book is set in the depression era of the 1930s, and is a bizarre romp through as list of situations and circumstances that defy probability, and yet could have happened.
Dark Rides is set in the 1950s (an era I am nostalgically familiar with) and is the story of a teenage, Canadian farm boy trying to come to grips with his homosexuality. Regretfully he has less than a minimum of sophistication and no one to turn to in a small, roughneck community. It is a dark plot in some ways, and yet it is humorous on account of his naiveté.
My views
I once read that successful writing is at once unique and universal, and this applies fairly well to McCormack’s style. It has a refreshing difference that almost defies comparison, and yet I was able to identify with the farm boy’s naive character quite well. Even the small community and its denizens were familiar to me.
Journalistically, McCormack is a minimalist. There is no superfluity or long poetic narratives here, only the bare minimum to tell the story and define the characters. Yet they were as developed as any I have read. They are a young farm boy and a ‘slicker,’ base individuals in a loveable way, and so too much development would clutter the picture.
Grab Bag is one of those stories that will stay with me long after I put it down. Five bees.
May 2, 2012
Grab Bag brings together two of Canadian cult favorite Derek McCormack's short novels. (I get the impression that all of McCormack's novels are short, something I heartily support.)
In Dark Rides a gay teenager growing up a farm boy in 1950's Canada has the occasional sexual encounter and suffers the kinds of bullying and abuse you might expect. There is even the old standby of the piss-filled urinal head dunk. Much more severe and shocking is the negative reinforcement therapy (read: torture) he endures from a doctor he sees when a romp in the hay leaves him with telltale abrasions and bits of grass on his ass. He has a tendency to do things that start fires, like making and selling homemade fireworks. It is almost always Halloween where he lives, and the carnival has come to town.
in Wish Book, set during the Great Depression, the narrator works a variety of jobs, most of them shady and often ending in disaster. In one of the more lighthearted tales, his attempt to romance a salesclerk in a department store via the pneumatic tubes used to transmit payments ends in an explosion of glitter.
McCormack writes in brief, elliptical chapters that keep the reader off-balance despite the sentence-by-sentence precision of the prose.
In Dark Rides a gay teenager growing up a farm boy in 1950's Canada has the occasional sexual encounter and suffers the kinds of bullying and abuse you might expect. There is even the old standby of the piss-filled urinal head dunk. Much more severe and shocking is the negative reinforcement therapy (read: torture) he endures from a doctor he sees when a romp in the hay leaves him with telltale abrasions and bits of grass on his ass. He has a tendency to do things that start fires, like making and selling homemade fireworks. It is almost always Halloween where he lives, and the carnival has come to town.
in Wish Book, set during the Great Depression, the narrator works a variety of jobs, most of them shady and often ending in disaster. In one of the more lighthearted tales, his attempt to romance a salesclerk in a department store via the pneumatic tubes used to transmit payments ends in an explosion of glitter.
McCormack writes in brief, elliptical chapters that keep the reader off-balance despite the sentence-by-sentence precision of the prose.
September 4, 2014
Half of this is DARK RIDES, so if you can't find it any other way, then get this book. The other half shares a lot of my own obsessions -- circus, sideshow, carny hucksterism, vintage comics -- but ultimately is an addled mess.
July 11, 2007
A great underappreciated Canadian minimalist.
February 24, 2012
There was promise here but it was not realized.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews