David Foster Wallace Ruined My Suicide and Other Stories

April 2014
248 pages | ISBN 978-1-894987-84-4

Filled with burning parade floats, bear attacks and roller derby leagues, D.D. Miller’s short stories present us with a comical collection of slacker heroes who get what they deserve in startling ways. These men are survivors, but they fail to appreciate how fortunate they are, and they watch helplessly as their lives unravel, if only because they fail to act.

Miller’s deft sentences and sharp characterization bring these stories to life, pulling readers into the lives of his cast of self-centred underdogs. Readers will find themselves sympathizing with these characters while laughing at the calamities Miller has artfully scattered in their paths.

Advance Praise

"D.D. Miller's David Foster Wallace Ruined My Suicide and Other Stories pulls back the curtain on the tense and darkly funny world of post-millennial men. Tasked with negotiating a universe of amateur porn stars, chat room suiciders and distracted derby girls, Miller's men are brazen, yet oddly disengaged – and above all, sharply observed." – Elisabeth de Mariaffi, author of How to Get Along with Women

"A striking debut. With unwavering eye and mordant humour, these stories gently scrape the civil facade to reveal what's awkward, raw and, sometimes, brutal in us. D.D. Miller is a writer to watch." – Bill Gaston, author of The World and Gargoyles

Reviews

Humour and Disquieting Discomfort (Ryan A. Gaio, Fiddlehead, 19/10/2016)
"Yet, as will all satire, the humour also stings. We laugh, but somewhat hesitantly, as the humour exposes a disquieting discomfort that emerges when we read D.D. Miller’s excellent collection: like the narrator in “Seeing Your Own” experiences, we may experience the disquieting discomfort that arises when we look at ourselves."

Review (Dan Keating, Eleven Eleven Journal, 01/02/2016)
"All in all, D.D. Miller weaves stories about deeply flawed characters who, on a basic level, don’t know how to handle themselves or the people around them; ultimately Miller’s characters are alone in their heads with the greatest strangers of all – themselves."

Life is like a book of chocolates (Lisa de Nikolits, Mesdames of Mayhem, 10/06/2014)
"The originality and vibrancy of these stories had me dipping into a precious stash of Freddos, tiny chocolate frogs that accompanied me back from Sydney, Australia. Why Freddos? Because the stories in this book are as delightful as chocolate frogs; playful with crackling exploding embedded bits of pop rocks, inviting all manner of memories from childhood to mix in with the complexities of adulthood."

David Foster Wallace Ruined My Suicide (Mark Sampson, Quill & Quire, 01/06/2014)
“D.D. Miller's debut story collection will probably raise a few eyebrows with its shamelessly provocative title. And for the the most part, these tales live up to that promised audaciousness.... The subject matter is masculinity, complete with beer, pornography, and bad choices.”

Articles

"The Wrong Numbers" (D. D. Miller, Joyland, 02/05/2014)
Check out the Joyland website to read one of the stories from David Foster Wallace Ruined My Suicide and Other Stories.

Ready to Launch: Buckrider Books (Kris Bone, Town Crier, 21/04/2014)
"Toronto-centric and often incorporating Miller’s love of roller derby (the titular story’s major scene happens at the rink, and a pair of roller skates graces the cover), it was a shame to hear only an excerpt rather than the full story. Funny and well-paced, it marks a welcome addition to Toronto’s wealth of short fiction collections."

Nerd to Release First Work of Fiction; Launch Dates Set for Toronto, Tri-City (D. D. Miller, Derby Nerd, 10/04/2014)
"This book has been a long time coming and features a wide variety of stories all dealing in some way with the vagaries of life in the early 21st century. Of course, roller derby played a part in the writing of the book—as it does in most aspects of my life—but it has a particularly large role in the title story.”

Spring preview 2014: short fiction, crime, poetry, and graphica (Steven W. Beattie, Quill & Quire, 16/01/2014)
“Poet Paul Vermeersch dons his publisher’s cap to launch the new Wolsak & Wynn imprint Buckrider Books, which has its inaugural season in 2014. One of the first titles is the new story collection from Toronto resident D.D. Miller. Provocatively titled David Foster Wallace Ruined My Suicide, the volume addresses a comical coterie of male protagonists, from slackers to sad sacks, all of whom get what’s coming to them.”

Interviews

12 or 20 (second series) questions with D.D. Miller (rob mclennan, rob mclennan's blog, 28/01/2015)
"It reminds me that this is, first and foremost, a craft. It’s not just thoughts and ideas (everyone has those); it’s the putting them to paper in good sentences and well-constructed stories that makes a writer."

D. D. Miller debuts with a darkly funny short story collection (LPG, LPG Staff's blog, 06/05/2014)
“The stories in David Foster Wallace Ruined My Suicide and Other Stories are darkly comic and always surprising. D.D. Miller’s protagonists are varied cast, but they are all stuck at a kind of crossroads in their lives.”

On Writing, With DD Miler, in Celebration of New Buckrider Imprint! (Grace O'Connell, Open Book Toronto, 09/04/0214)
“Roller derby plays a big role in the title story. However, thematically, that story is inline with the rest in its exploration of post-millennial gender relations, and how we interact with social media and the Internet. Both major themes throughout.
     "Although in many ways, my relationship with the sport of roller derby — and my interactions with the women and men who are involved in it — has certainly helped to shape my views of gender; it has strengthened my respect for the fluidity of gender roles and even the fluidity of gender itself.”

Excerpt

Click here to read "Son of Son of Flying Pig."

Videos

D.D. Miller reads from "My Summer with Seth" at Inspire! Toronto International Book Fair on November 15, 2014.

D. D. Miller reads from "Son of Son of Flying Pig" from David Foster Wallace Ruined My Suicide and Other Stories at the Toronto Buckrider Books luanch at the Gladstone on April 16, 2014.

About the Author

D. D. Miller is originally from Nova Scotia but has lived, worked and studied all across the country. His work has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies including The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, Eleven Eleven: Journal of Literature and Art and Dinosaur Porn. As the Derby Nerd, Miller is known around North America for his writing and commentary on roller derby, one of the world’s fastest growing sports.

A graduate of Mount Allison University, the University of Victoria and the University of Guelph (where he completed his MFA), Miller currently lives in Toronto where he works as a college English instructor. He also announced at both the 2011 and 2014 Roller Derby World Cups and was part of the ESPN's broadcast crew for the 2015 WFTDA Championships.

Other Titles by this Author

Eight-Wheeled Freedom: The Derby Nerd's Short History of Flat Track Roller Derby (2016)