Books by John Toomey

When Albert Jackson, a middle-aged school teacher, catches a glimpse of the infinite universe and his own tiny insignificance he cannot shake himself free of regret for a life all but squandered. In a blind and demented attempt to salvage something from his life, he sets off, half-lucidly, on a mission to reclaim life, to live it on his terms.

When Vic meets Lali, they stumble into a dysfunctional ten-year relationship that leaves him in ruins and raising a child on his own. As Vic strives to protect their daughter from the cruel truths of his relationship with her mother, he finds himself hopelessly submerged in Lali's seemingly inexplicable contradictions, and their implications concerning his own inability to move on. Huddleston Road is an honest, often brutal examination of the loneliness that results from our inability to truly know the people who share our lives-and about our need to reach out and try nonetheless.

Stuart Byrne is a young, beautiful, single businessman who finds his perfect life sabotaged by a growing awareness of his own superficiality. Nauseated by his own helplessness, struck by a creeping lethargy, Stuart tumbles through a tumultuous week of excess, promiscuity, deception, cowardice, and regret, and in the process manages to trade his slick perfection for a fantastic, and darkly hilarious, catastrophe. A deadpan comedy about the rather unfunny void in the center of many modern lives, "Sleepwalker" explores how our trying to fill that void can be just as destructive as ignoring it, and how the world will always let the beautiful get away with murder.