Mortmortepreview

mort morte by David Henry Sterry Illustrations by Alain Pilon

Dedication This is for all the boys and girls and the moms who love them.

CHAPTER 1

A BINKY, A BOY, A MAN, & A GUN On my third birthday, my father, in an attempt to get me to stop sucking my thumb, gave me a gun.

“Today, son, you are a man,” he said, snatching the little, blue binky from my little, pink hand.

So I shot him.

CHAPTER 2 MY POOR DEAD DAD My mother, the most milky of women, was not pleased that I killed her husband, but being British, she did not complain. She did what she was bred to do: Apologize.

To the ambulance driver. To the homicide detective. To the emergency medical technicians.

She made them all a nice cup of tea with some scones, clotted cream, and crustless cucumber sandwiches. My milky mother firmly believes that, sometimes, the only thing separating sanity and bedlam is a nice cup of tea.

After they’d had an elegant sufficiency, the ambulance driver, the detective, and the emergency medical technicians thanked her profusely as they carted away my poor dead dad, who had, all agreed, taken it like a man.

The next day, my mother got her hair frosted so she would look pretty for the funeral.

It was a sparse but dismal affair. The priest had apparently forgotten to put it on his calendar, so only my freshly frosted milky mother and myself were actually present.

Apparently my late dad was even less popular in death than he had been in life.

There was no one to tell her how pretty she looked.

So I did. I said: “You looked pretty Mother.”

She smiled as she cried.

CHAPTER 3 THE END And that was the end of my father.

About the Author

David Henry Sterry is the author of 13 books, a performer, muckraker, educator, activist, and book doctor. His ground-breaking anthology Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent-Boys was featured on the front cover of the Sunday New York Times Book Review. His first memoir, Chicken, was an international bestseller and has sold into nine countries. He has written books about working at Chippendales Male Strip Club, the teenaged brain, how to throw a great pajama party if you’re a tween girl, a patriciding mama’s boy, World Cup soccer, a sex maniac, and how to get a book published. He’s taught at Stanford, Reed and Smith. He’s appeared in the London Times, on NPR, and between the covers of both Penthouse and Playgirl magazines. He’s acted with Will Smith, Michael Caine and Zippy the Chimp. He’s worked as a soda jerk, limo driver, referee, building inspector, Disney screenwriter, poet, athlete, telephone solicitation specialist, and marriage counselor. He loves any sport with balls, and his girls.

About the Illustrator

Alain Pilon was born in Rouyn-Noranda in 1960; he currently both lives and works in Montreal. He’s studied graphic design at the Université du Quebec in Montreal and in 1986 he decided to focus solely on illustration. As a man of many talents, his art can take different forms, ranging from a Dadaist-style collage to an ink sketch in which you can feel the influence of classic Belgian and French bande dessinée. His work has been published in American, Canadian and French media, including the New York Times, Première, Popular Science, The New Yorker, L’Actualité and Infopresse. Les Allusifs publishing house has selected him to illustrate their novel covers.

He has worked with Air France magazine, Le Monde, as well as for the Psychologies and XXl magazines. He has received numerous awards, amongst which are the American Illustration Annual, Communication Arts, Society of Illustrators, Print Magazine, Design Annual, National Magazine Awards, Applied Arts, Advertising & Design Club of Canada.

He is represented in the USA by Garance.

For more information, please visit http://alainpilon.com.