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COLIN WINNETTE reads from his novel THE JOB OF THE WASP with AMELIA GRAY

The Job of the Wasp (Soft Skull Press)

A new arrival at an isolated school for orphaned boys quickly comes to realize there is something wrong with his new home. He hears chilling whispers in the night, his troubled classmates are violent and hostile, and the Headmaster sends cryptic messages, begging his new charge to confess. As the new boy learns to survive on the edges of this impolite society, he starts to unravel a mystery at the school’s dark heart. And that’s when the corpses start turning up.

A coming-of-age tale, a Gothic ghost story, and a murder mystery all in one, The Job of the Wasp is a bloodcurdling and brilliantly subversive novel about paranoia, love, and the nightmare of adolescence.

Praise for The Job of the Wasp

"The Job of the Wasp is a madcap mystery, a macabre coming-of-age story and an unearthly fantasy--but it feels like childhood, like the world, like life."—Daniel Handler, author of We Are Pirates and All The Dirty Parts

“A witty and grisly gothic unlike anything I’ve ever read. You should absolutely read this.” —Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble

"The Job of the Wasp is wonderfully creepy and peculiar, a sort of gothic rendition of Lord of the Flies. Colin Winnette is an enviable, natural talent, and to read him is a pure entertainment." —Patrick Dewitt, author of The Sister Brothers and Undermajordomo Minor

"Not only a page turner—and it is that—The Job of the Wasp is an unsettling whodunit like you have never read before. Terrifying and stylish, disconcerting and beautiful, it calls to mind Donna Tartt's The Secret History and the mysteries of Agatha Christie, though Winnette has his own echoing and eerie original voice. This is a perceptive, darkly funny novel that reminds us of how thrilling and bizarre it is to be alive."—Rachel Khong, author of Goodbye, Vitamin

Colin Winnette is the author of Haints Stay (Two Dollar Radio, 2015), Coyote (Les Figues Press, 2015), Fondly (Atticus Books, 2013) Animal Collection (Spork Press, 2012), and Revelation (Mutable Sound Press, 2011). His books have been translated into French and Italian, and his writing has appeared in PlayboyLos Angeles Review of BooksThe BelieverLucky Peach, and numerous other journals and anthologies. He lives in San Francisco.

Photo by Jennifer Yin

Amelia Gray, author of the new novel Isadora, has written several books, including AM/PMMuseum of the WeirdTHREATS, and Gutshot. Her fiction and essays have appeared in The New YorkerThe New York TimesThe Wall Street JournalTin House, and VICE. She has been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and is a winner of the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and the FC2 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Contest. She lives in Los Angeles.

Photo by Matthew Chamberlain

Event date: 
Tuesday, January 16, 2018 - 7:30pm
Event address: 
1818 N Vermont Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027
The Job of the Wasp: A Novel By Colin Winnette, Colin Winnette Cover Image
$16.95
Possibly out of print. Email or call to check availability and price.
ISBN: 9781593766801
Published: Soft Skull - January 9th, 2018

Haints Stay By Colin Winnette Cover Image
$16.00
Possibly out of print. Email or call to check availability and price.
ISBN: 9781937512323
Published: Two Dollar Radio - June 2nd, 2015