There's Grandaddy Jake Santee, 99 years old, an unreformed gambler, cranky reprobate and fierce opponent of the work ethic. Thanks to his home-distilled hooch, Ol' Death Whisper, he reckons he's in with good shot at immortality. And then there's Tiny, adopted at the age of four by Grandaddy Jake, a giant young man as gentle as Jake is belligerent. And then there's Fup, an uncompromising twenty-pound mallard, partial to a drink herself, whose unique presence transforms the Santee household. Hilarious, heartwarming and magical, Fup is a contemporary fable that inspires an almost evangelical fervour in all who read it. It is a work of enormous originality with a giant heart.

While Jim Dodge is internationally known for his fiction, his first and abiding passion is poetry. After eighteen years of publishing anonymously and reading only to local crowds in the Pacific Northwest, he began to issue occasional limited-edition letterpress chapbooks with a small press, as well as occasional broadsides and, since 1987, a winter solstice poem or story, most given as gifts to friends. Rain on the River contains work collected here for the first time, as well as three dozen previously unpublished poems. Dodge's poems and short prose offer the same pleasures as his fiction -- a splendid ear for language, great emotional range and subtlety, a sharp eye for the illuminating detail, and a sensibility that encompasses outright hilarity, savage wit, and tender marvel, all made eminently accessible through writing of uncompromising clarity and grace. "Like being at a nonstop party in celebration of everything that matters." -- Thomas Pynchon "A rollicking, frequently surprising adventure-cum-fairy tale. It also has a sweetness about it and an indigenous American optimism." -- The New York Times Book Review "Diverse, savvy, passionate.... Poetry should be a pleasure, and Jim Dodge's work is just that." -- Gary Snyder

Not Fade Away is a rock 'n' roll road novel with rhythm to burn, traveling in time from the Beat era to the dawn of the sixties. George Gastin is a San Francisco tow-truck operator who wrecks cars as part of an insurance scam. One of the cars Gastin is hired to destroy is a snow-white 1959 Cadillac that was supposed to be a present for the Big Bopper, who died in a plane crash with Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens. Instead, Gastin takes off in the car and heads for Texas where the Big Bopper was buried. Armed with a thousand hits of Benzedrine, Gastin navigates a road trip that will cover many miles and states of mind between the coffeehouses of San Francisco's North Beach and the open plains of the Midwest. Along the way Gastin picks up some extraordinary hitchhikers -- the self-proclaimed "world's greatest salesman", the Reverend Double-Gone Johnson, and a battered housewife with a box of old 45s. As the miles and sleepless hours roll by, Gastin's trip becomes a blur of fantasy and reality fueled by a soundtrack of classic rock 'n' roll.

When Daniel's mother dies, he is brought under the protection of the AMO: the Alliance of Magicians and Outlaws. It is an introduction to a world of revenge, revolution and mind-bending chemicals, where anarchists, alchemists and high-stake gamblers co-exist. It is a place in which magic and murder are the norm. So begins an extraordinary quest for knowledge and understanding in this unforgettable outlaw classic.

Start with Granddaddy Jake Santee, a cantankerous, ninety-nine-year-old coot with a taste for gambling and whiskey; add in Tiny, his gentle giant of an adopted grandson, whose passion for building well-crafted fences on land with no livestock borders on obsessive; then add Fup, a twenty-pound mallard with an iron will and a fondness for hooch and romantic movies. What do you get? You get Fup-a wildly eccentric modern classic that invites you to sit a spell and wet your whistle while it regales you with tales of teaching Fup to fly, the Sunday morning pig hunt, and the Great Checker Showdown of '78. First published in 1983, this hilarious, heartwarming, magical tale has sold over 100,000 copies since its debut. Fup is a contemporary fable that inspires an evangelical fervor in all who read it. As Granddaddy Jake says: It just ain't possible to explain some things, maybe even most things. It's interesting to wonder on them and do some speculation, but the main thing is you have to accept it-take it for what it is, and get on with your getting." So, get on with your getting and read Fup-it's all it's quacked up to be!

Jim Dodge said he would consider publishing a volume of poetry if he lived to the millennium. Happily he did, and Rain on the River is the immediate result - work selected from his Tangram chapbooks, broadsides, and Solstice pieces, accompanied by three dozen new poems. If you've enjoyed his fiction, Dodge's first collection of poems and short prose offer similar pleasures: a splendid ear for language, great emotional range and subtlety, a sharp eye for the illuminating detail, and a sensibility that encompasses outright hilarity, savage wit, and tender marvel - all made eminently accessible through writing of uncompromising clarity and grace.

Floorboard George Gastin is part of an insurance scam to wreck a pure white, mint condition '59 Cadillac originally intended for The Big Bopper as a token of an admirer's love. But Floorboard George has other ideas and when he disappears with the car, gangsters and cops are soon in hot pursuit. On the road, the crazy characters, hitch-hikers and demented preachers he meets provide the high-octane entertainment as George covers many miles - and states of mind - in his quest to find the true spirit of rock 'n' roll.