Sometimes Ridiculous

"Umberto Tosi is a writer of great wit and vision," writes Elizabeth McKenzie, bestselling author of "The Portable Veblen" "Reading Umberto Tosi's stories is like a vertiginous trip on a combination magic carpet and time machine, the passengers generously fueled with complimentary loco weed," writes John Blades, fiction editor of "Chicago Quarterly Review" and editor emeritus of the "Chicago Tribune Sunday Book World."Blades continues: "Always observant and audacious, Tosi's stories set off unearthly echoes of Ray Bradbury and Nathanael West, while displaying the Shakespearean gusto and mordant humor that marked his revisionist novel, 'Ophelia Rising, ' in which he resurrected the Hamlet heroine from her watery grave." A precocious kid plots assassination to rescue his ribald and abused, klutzy-but-talented opera diva mother; An unemployed Satan, Jr. poses for tourist selfies on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; a dream-walking boy joins a pack of coyotes, eluding sniper fire in tinder-dry Hollywood Hills canyons; a surprise, celeb-trial witness reveals Snow White's dark side. Author Umberto Tosi lives up to his reputation for marrying memorable characters and magic realism in this collection of vivid short stories that you won't want to put down.