[Dispatch No. 001]
Empty Calories and Male Curiosity: Stories
A coming-of-age story collection set in turn-of-the-millennium Jersey. Available now!
Cosmorama is thrilled to announce our next release: Empty Calories and Male Curiosity: Stories by Ted McLoof, available for pre-order now and shipping December 16th.
Set in a blue-collar New Jersey town at the turn of the millennium, these stories follow a group of teenagers stumbling through the messy space between childhood and whatever comes next. They’re caught between 9/11 and the dawn of the internet, between aging strip-malls and after-school jobs, between the pop songs on their radios and the adults they’re not sure they want to become.
In “Future Girl,” the AIDS crisis delivers unexpected lessons in grief. In “Elegy for a Sporting Goods Store,” a mom-and-pop shop fights its final round against a changing world. And in “The View from Hawthorne Heights,” the looming Iraq War becomes a soundtrack of its own.
McLoof captures the confusion, humor, loneliness, and electric hope of a generation growing up just as history starts speeding up around them. It’s sharp, nostalgic, and quietly devastating in all the best ways.
We’re incredibly proud to bring this collection into the world — and we can’t wait for you to read it.