Alligators on Playgrounds

In this collection of provocative, darkly funny short stories and poems, Justin Keith Morgan blends elements of surrealism and satire to explore the joys and tragedies, ironies and absurdities of modern life.

Populating these sixteen short stories and forty-two poems are deeply flawed, sympathetic characters who find themselves in both ordinary and extraordinary situations, experiencing love and loneliness, gratitude and regret, wonder and disillusionment, and (sometimes) a much-needed dose of divine intervention: an online gambling addict; a suicidal shoe salesman; an OCD psychopath; a tabloid TV show security guard; an autophobic house burglar; an obese janitor-turned-reluctant hero; a pretentious, ill-fated literary critic; an inarticulate, cantankerous elderly couple; a paranoid, self-conscious apostate; a shrinking man; a vengeful, Twinkie-loving fourth grader; an alcoholic chain smoker with a possessed left hand; and more.

Beneath all the mundanity and madness emerge themes of alienation, technology, death, art, religion, sex, consumerism, language, beauty, fatherhood, and the profound existence of physical objects.

At times comical, heartbreaking, weird, grotesque, violent, irreverent, or crude, but always candid, ALLIGATORS ON PLAYGROUNDS is a journey into the familiar and the strange, the sacred and the profane, the everyday and the impossible.