A dark comedy about a young man’s aspirations to be something better than he currently is.
Frustrated 35-year-old plumber Isaac Sullivan believes he has both the intellect and skill to be a surgeon. Forced to take over his father’s plumbing business straight out of high school, Isaac’s had dreams of attending the University of Michigan that fell by the wayside. However, the unfortunate setback didn’t stop him entirely. For the past decade, he has absorbed every medical textbook and journal available to him. For practical experience, Isaac performs surgeries on the wildlife around his house, preparing for the day he attends Michigan.
Yet the years continue to pass and Isaac remains stuck in Paradise, Michigan, as a plumber. That is, until this year, when an event pushes him to apply as an undergraduate for the first time. Exit Papers from Paradise is about the gap between the person we are and the person we desperately want to be.
Editorial Reviews
Review
A riveting exploration of a life that didn’t turn out as it should have, Exit Papers from Paradise is a superb first novel. Liam Card writes with intensity, verve, and precision, and the character he has created in Isaac is one that won’t soon leave me.
— Steven Galloway ― Author of The Cellist of Sarajevo
This riveting debut novel from Liam Card explores what happens when life doesn’t meet our expectations; it’s about the gap between the person we are and the person we desperately want to be.
― OpenbookToronto.com
Wise, riveting, it’s a super debut novel.
― Owen Sound Sun Times
It’s funny but the rawness of the material occasionally makes you cringe.
― Quill & Quire
Review
Sharp, funny and incisive as a surgeon’s scalpel, in Exit Papers from Paradise Liam Card has created a narrator in Isaac as bitterly funny as he is sad, one that brilliantly and poignantly captures the ironic anxiety of today’s everyman. I laughed until my heart broke. This is a book I couldn’t put down for a second.
— Maureen Medved ― Author of The Tracey Fragments
About the Author
Liam Card studied writing at the University of Iowa and the University of North Carolina. He is a screenwriter and author of the novels Stopgap and Exit Papers from Paradise. Liam lives in Toronto.
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