Ranging widely in subject matter—from a musician's destructive narcissism to the strange effects a persistent Norwegian has on a bachelor's love life—the stories in this collection also vary in style. Both elegantly insightful and highly adventurous, these tales are inventive, deeply comic, sometimes very unsettling, and completely engaging. Lanzmann and Other Stories marks the debut of a startlingly gifted writer.

Awards

Shortlisted for the ReLit Award, 2007.

Praise

“In his debut story collection, Damian Tarnopolsky often writes like a dazzling fallen angel.... I listened to Tarnopolsky plucking at my shopworn critical synapses, and asked why he made them sing in a way several prize contenders haven't. The answer is that he's a truly new voice, delivered with a rare panache.”
–The Globe and Mail

“[Tarnopolsky's stories] not only display an ironic sensibility, but also demonstrate a prose style that owes much to the influence of Kafka.... At turns surreal, serio-comic whimsical and erotic, Tarnopolsky's stories hurtle headlong into the heart of our myths... and reveal that the truth waiting for us is not what we'd expect.”
–Toronto Star

“When writers try to capture a Toronto brand of corruption, of sleazy suits and ponytailed men, usually only a CTV-level of pseudo grit is achieved. What in other hands is embarrassing (and embarrassed) is assured and malicious in Lanzmann and Other Stories, the fiction debut by Damian Tarnopolsky. Tarnopolsky’s protagonists are slowly revealed though eloquent writing and, by story’s end, the recipients of inventive comeuppances.... Tarnopolsky may capture very real worlds and emotions but he allows just enough conjecture to make original turns... There’s authority, Nabokovian play and bawdiness to these tales.... And if this desperately earnest town needs one thing, it’s satire that takes itself seriously.”
–eye weekly

“Tarnopolsky loves his characters for his flaws, not despite them, and the reader too is compelled. The prose is delicate, thoughtful and funny.... Tarnopolsky’s characters are finely fleshed out, the dialogue is fluid and believable, and the structures are clever and interesting…. It is proof of Tarnopolsky’s skill, insight, and wit.”
–Quill and Quire

 “Lanzmann and Other Stories is smart and funny and crass and intelligent. There is sour humour in these stories and bitter discovery. Tarnopolsky is full of form and new feeling. Highly recommended.”
–Michael Winter, author of The Architects are Here

“The modulation of structure and voice are amazing. I think if your only language were Pashto or Tagalog, you could still listen to the telling of these stories and find pleasure and drama, and a fast sense of character too.”
–Seán Virgo, author of The Eye in the Thicket

“Full of sex and music, cynicism and beauty, absurdity and perfect order, cities and conversation and perversity, Tarnopolsky’s elegant stories are darkly brilliant reflections of our darkly glittering age.”
–Stephen Marche, author of Shining at the Bottom of the Sea

Edward Dacres is an abstract painter whose erratic behaviour has reduced a once-shining career to shambles. When, in the opening days of World War Two, a misdirected letter invites "Mr. Davis" to take part in a tour to the Colonies, Dacres seizes the opportunity to leave England.

Dacres is swiftly embroiled in a series of mishaps before abandoning the group to try his luck in Toronto. Unfortunately, most of Toronto's good citizens have their minds on the war and don't much care for his painted triangles. Most, that is, with the exception of a beautiful heiress with an eye for art and a wilful determination to save Dacres from himself.

On the surface a satirical, picaresque tale of gin, cowardice and artistic paralysis, Goya's Dog is ultimately a darker consideration of grief, war, and the self-sacrifice necessary for love. 

Awards

Nominated for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, 2009.

Nominated for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best Book, Canada and the Caribbean, 2010.

Praise

“Clever, achingly funny, perfectly calibrated, in that terrain between the farcical and the poignant—I read it in a day.”
–Joan Thomas, author of Curiosity

“Because it's always saying something about the here and now, historical fiction with a satirical edge can sometimes wickedly reveal how little things can change.... Very funny and biting.... Readers across the country will be very interested in this Toronto novel.”
–The Globe and Mail

“Sarcastic, self-destructive, yet strangely endearing, Edward Dacres is the best kind of anti-hero -- the kind you can't forget. Who'd have thought a book about art and Toronto would be a page-turner? And yet it is, as we watch, riveted, to see if Dacres is going to fail or succeed. In crystalline prose, and with affectionate satire, Tarnopolsky deftly leads the reader forward, and twists this tale of a down-and-out British painter into a glorious celebration of life's simpler beauties.”
–Miguel Syjuco, author of Ilustrado

“Darkly hilarious.... Damian Tarnopolsky’s meticulously weighted prose creates a vivid impression of his protagonist.”
–Straight.com

“I was most struck by the sustained excellence of the prose.  There is a deftness to the sense of pace and imagery that we associate with writers very much at home with their craft.... As a historian I often dislike fiction set in the past, because the author's sense of history is usually so bad. I didn't have this feeling at all with the deft recreation of Toronto in Goya’s Dog, which seemed to me admirably minimalist.”
–Michael Bliss, author of Right Honourable Men

“A vivid portrayal of depression.... Goya’s Dog presents interesting insight into a sad mind and an unimaginable fate for many.”
–Calgary FFWD

“Damian Tarnopolsky's style is essentially witty: it combines observation and action in a way that is so elegant, so articulate and yet light of touch that one is hardly aware of its complexity. And he has made a book about a troubled person and a particularly turbulent place in history, a book about Canada as seen by an Englishman, a book about art and war and desire, that is both funny and sad.”
–Russell Smith, author of Muriella Pent

“A compelling story of an artist at war with himself.”
–Quill & Quire

Winner of the Voaden Prize, 2019

Staged readings:
Kingston Writersfest, September 2019, directed by Craig Walker
Village Playhouse, Toronto, November 2019.

Stage Ready script available from Canadian Play Outlet for amateur productions.

Setting

The present.

A modern meeting room in a university: boardroom table, office chairs, AV unit, etc. The action takes place over the course of one afternoon as the final oral examination of Hannah Ward’s PhD thesis – her defence – is ending. In an oral defence the student is questioned about her thesis by her supervisor, committee members, and an external examiner. It finishes with the examiners voting on whether or not the student passes and receives the degree.

At curtain: Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin playing. Images of woods and frozen lakes. Pots and pans upstage, a harmonium and an astrolabe and a samovar and a liquor cabinet, typewriters, other imaginative antiques. Lots of books.

As the play begins, the exam has been going on for about three hours: the chairs have become painful, the air close.

Characters

Hannah Ward, a graduate student, mid 20s On a mission. Insightful, cutting, and vulnerable.

Tom Solloway, a biographer, 50ish. August, well-fed, charming, and elusive.

Barney Patricchio, a young professor, 30ish. Nervous, besotted, smart. (And: Tom when he was decades younger.)

Galina Jackson, a dean, mid 40s.Ambitious, perfectly dressed, and keen to maintain her assurance. (And: Marilyn, a powerful New York literary agent.)

Alfred Whinny, an old professor, 70ish Doddery and narcissistic, but perhaps not such a fool as he appears. (And: Armin, an eccentric Slovenian publisher.)

Janis Chung, a middle-aged professor, mid 50sCaring and honourable, someone who actually listens, a good person. (And: Claudia, an able office assistant.)  

1.

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“With his new short story collection Every Night I Dream I’m a Monk, Every Night I Dream I’m a Monster, Toronto writer Damian Tarnopolsky (Goya’s Dog) explores the full potential of the form, pressing to the limits of the genre. It’s a heady experiment, and a powerful reading experience… One of the most intriguing, original pieces of fiction you are liable to read this year."
-Robert J. Wiersema, Quill and Quire (starred review)

"Wistful, dark, and complex, Damian Tarnopolsky’s Every Night I Dream I’m a Monk, Every Night I Dream I’m a Monster is an idiosyncratic journey through all the messy, disparate, and contradictory parts of being, or becoming, a person."
-Jen Rawlinson, Hamilton Review of Books

“I've never read anything quite like this book. It's a gem whose facets seem familiar until you turn it slightly and find it refracting in a completely unpredictable way: by turns searching, scary, and humane.”
– Craig Davidson

“Monk/Monster is a connected series of painful and amazing stories.  One story concerns a job interview, a pistol, and a confused narrator just clinging to sanity, all told in a torrential stream of consciousness prose, a pleasing chaos, like Nabokov on acid.  Often the reader is deep in a character’s head, yet outside watching and gathering clues.  Nothing is spelt out and old family lore hovers; the effect is comic and chilling and the writing is artful and very impressive.”
– Mark Anthony Jarman

EVERY NIGHT I DREAM I’M A MONK, EVERY NIGHT I DREAM I’M A MONSTER offers an unfolding puzzle of the psyche that is at once explosive, funny, dark, sweet, pained, and utterly strange.

From the tangled threads of a messed-up family to the timeless themes of consciousness, love, art, and death, Damian Tarnopolsky’s narrative journey takes readers through past, present, and future, with stories spanning from 1980s England to present-day Canada, alongside visions of Renaissance France and worlds yet to come.

Each tale stands alone in its stylistic direction, only to connect and reflect back on each other in unexpected, touching, and sometimes jarring ways. As characters from different times and places converge, the result is a mosaic of emotions and insights that mirror the complexities of a self in time.

With echoes of Chekhov, Olga Tokarczuk, and Jennifer Egan, this collection transcends the boundaries of traditional storytelling, offering a glimpse into the workings of human relationships, inheritance, and experience.

Featured in Quill and Quire's fall preview

One of The Globe and Mail's books to read this season

Featured in CBC's list of Canadian Books We Can't Wait to Read This Septemberand CBC Short Story Prizewinners and Finalists Publishing Books in 2024

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