Channel Surfing in the Sea of Happiness is a funny, poignant, and timelessly provocative collection of short stories where misfit characters find themselves adrift in an increasingly absurdist world. These strong-willed characters explore how much of their identities are forged by direct experience, and how much is shaped by constant exposure to the barrage of images imposed on them from elsewhere. First published in 1998 in a limited edition, these stories, accompanied by three new stories, remain astonishingly relevant. From a story about a precocious teenage boy coming out in high school in the ’70s, to a series of tales about two queer con artists and their ridiculous get-rich-quick schemes, to a yarn about a famous transgender sex worker’s efforts to rally her community against redneck homophobes, to an account of a lesbian puppeteer’s AIDS activism in the 1980s, to a story about a sister coming to terms with her brother’s death from AIDS, the collection explores how the human heart stays afloat in a society that is entertaining, informing, and networking itself to death.

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