Laughing Through Life At Fart Height is Gordon Kirkland's 10th book. He has been entertaining readers and audiences throughout North America and beyond for over two decades. Three of his previous books have received Canada's prestigious Stephen Leacock Award of Merit for Humour. Kirkland suffered a spinal cord injury in a 1990 car accident. In 2013 he received a life-saving organ transplant. This book features some of his favorite stories from his long-running syndicated humor column, previous books, other writing, and live performances, as well as new material written for this book. It is Kirkland's stated goal for this book, that it show that, while a spinal cord injury takes away some of the sense of feeling, it need not affect the sense of humor. All of the stories contained in this book were written after his injury, and the new material was written after his organ transplant. They all show that the humor that occurs in day to day life has been every bit as evident to him as they would be to someone who had not faced those traumas. The title comes from one of Kirkland's stage lines, that sitting in a wheelchair in a line-up or in a crowded elevator puts his head in the direct line of fire for other's flatulence.
About the Author: Gordon Kirkland began writing full time four years after sustaining a spinal cord injury in 1990. His syndicated newspaper column ran in papers in Canada and the United States from 1994 to 2007. His first book, Justice Is Blind - And Her Dog Just Peed IN My Cornflakes was released in 1999. He has written close to one thousand newspaper columns, magazine articles, and short stories. His books include eight collections of humorous essays and two novels. Three of his previous nine books received the Stephen Leacock Award of Merit for Humour, one of Canada's top literary awards. Laughing Through Life At Fart Height, his tenth book, takes his favorite stories from the last twenty-two years, and combines them with new material. His stated purpose for this book is to show that, while the spinal cord injury that put him in a wheelchair took away some of his sense of feeling, it did not affect his sense of humor. The title comes from a situation he has often shared on stage. Waiting in line at a grocery store or riding on an elevator makes wheelchair users highly aware of other's gaseous eruptions. He says, "I used to stand 6'4" and people would ask me how the air is up there. Now in my wheelchair I am about 4'6". That puts my head in the atmospheric zone I call fart height. You really don't want to know how the air is down here." Gordon was born in 1953 and grew up in the Toronto and London, Ontario areas, and got his start in stand-up comedy when still a teenager performing in coffeehouses and clubs in Southern Ontario. He has held management and executive positions in both private industry and government. He has lived near Vancouver BC since 1982. In 2013, his life was saved by a last-minute organ transplant. He was in palliative care waiting to move to a hospice when the call came that an organ match had been found. He and his high school sweetheart, Diane have been married for 43 years. The have two adult sons and a very spoiled surrogate grandchild in the form of a chocolate Labrador Retriever. He enjoys traveling, underwater and on-land photography, and wheelchair hiking.