A man witnesses the aftermath of animal slaughter while taking his daughter pumpkin-picking on a farm; two men plot the death of a Hank Williams wannabe; a lonely young man develops roundworm from exposure to old books - these are some of the stories in Ron Block's original and hilarious debut collection of stories. Block has a fierce range as a writer, the stories riding the spectrum from quiet poignancy to the bizarre and raucous. THE DIRTY SHAME HOTEL is a darkly comic, unflinching, and unsettling account of the lives of the disenfranchised. - Laurie Foos, author of EX UTERO. Ron Block is a writer with nerve and verve, a high wire artist whose stunning leaps of fancy balance us on the thin edge where the fantastic and the ordinary meet. - Lee Martin, author of THE LEAST YOU KNEED TO KNOW.