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Kassten Alonso takes the reader on a wild ride inside the mind of a profoundly disturbed man as he descends into madness and violence. A beautifully written book. Impossible to put down.—James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces

Kassten Alonso’s amazing Core will startle you. A fierce story that actually taught me to read it as I went deeper and deeper—it’s as if this book is written in a rich, beautiful language I’d once known and somehow forgotten. I’m happy and terrified to have it back.—Peter Rock, author of The Bewildered

A novel of considerable daring and precision. In finely worked language, Kassten Alonso explores the border between Hell and the everyday, finding it closer than we might have hoped. A dense, surprising, beautifully worked novel. —Kevin Canty, author of Winslow in Love

Sentences sputter and fracture. Noting is linear. But the story progresses, through repetitions of words and phrases, and occansional clear windows in the kaleidoscope of narration, constructing a crazy quilt of a story of love gone terribly wrong, and bad things that happen because of it. —The Oregonian

A gorgeous, fractured novel about a homicidal sculptor of stones and ceramics.—Creative Loafing Atlanta

A true craftsman, Alonso controls his form &endash; portraying the internal madness of the main character without sacrificing clarity of style or plot orientation. Further, what in lesser hands could have easily lapsed into tedious stream of consciousness becomes a sublime landscape of mental anguish and crazed logic. —The Portland Alliance

Kassten Alonso's debut novel is stark and affecting. , Juxtaposing the sweet and the macabre, Alonso heightens the reader's perceptions of each. Alonso's prose is exquisite and artistic. He's able to reflect the narrator's instability amazingly well through a sort of stream of consciousness prose, while never losing the descriptiveness and lyrical quality that captures and holds the reader's attention from the first to the last page.

Alonso's modern gothic tale-- think windswept American corn fields rather than dark English moors-- is absolutely arresting. Core: A Romance is the demonstration of a writer with great skill and precision. Highly recommended. —The Absinthe Literary Review

These authors have no idea what a pain in the ass it is filing titles that begin with numbers.” —Matt Plies, Annie Bloom's Books

Ravishing work, my son. Voluptuously heartbreaking. —Thomas Aquinas

Anyplace around here I might wash my hands? —Pontius Pilate

How about 501 Minutes to Lunch? —Barabbas

By grace, through faith, they offed my head in 65, but I’m still here as you see, a Pharisee, a tortured wanderer, like this man Ballantine, by grace through faith, as to all those who wait, and shirk not the light of truth. —Saint Paul the Apostle

My soul yearns to know this most entangled enigma. I confess to Thee, O Lord, that I really have no idea what Poe Ballantine is talking about. —Saint Augustine

OK, so I edited the Bible as you know it, and I was a pagan emperor and all that, but when my Franks and I marched outnumbered under the Christian standard and whipped those Goth mercenaries all the way to the Hellespont, Rome saw another glorious millennium. In hoc signo vinces. Remember also: Istanbul was Constantinople. Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople. Been a long time gone, Constantinople. Now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night. —Constantine the Great

Hey, that guy stole our song. —The Four Lads

Shameless manipulation of Christian Iconography worked for me, and I’m not even a real blonde! —Madonna

They weren’t talking to you, my dear. —Madonna

Oh, you bore me, you’re all so boring. —Satan

No matter if you didn't catch the first book. Or if fiction about young guys who drink themselves pie-eyed every night, and lust after each other's girlfriends is not your favorite genre. Ballantine's genial, reckless narrator is part Huck Finn, part Hunter S. Thompson. And in a few pages he's charming you, more than any "pot-smoking, card-playing, music-loving, late night party hound" really should.— The Seattle Times

This second novel from Ballantine (after God Clobbers Us All) initially conjures images of Lord of the Flies, but then you would have to add about ten years to the protagnists' ages and make them sex-crazed, gold-seeking alcoholics. — Library Journal

Poe Ballantine in this sequel to God Clobbers Us All, reveals that he is a writer with a keen ear and a blistering wit...it's a prime opportunity to observe a writer's joyful wallow in the decadence of words. — The Austin Chronicle

Edgar's supersize pal Mountain is the best of the author's creations: "He possesses a merry and absurd sweetness . . . combined with a body mass that can block out the sun." — Booklist

Ballantine's second novel is ...memorable...funny and smart, and rarely boring. — Philadelphia Weekly

Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire has the same amped tone and subtropical setting as Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary but less of the gonzo arrogance and more of that good ol’ American angst.

Fans will remember Edgar from Ballantine’s first novel, God Clobbers Us All, and will again be rewarded with the self-effacing character also visible in his inimitable essays in the Sun Magazine. The prose is poised on the brink of perfection, and the plot twists into an unexpected yet perfect conclusion that makes scotch and roadkill seem almost palatable. ... — San Francisco Bay Guardian

Ballantine’s novel is an entertaining coming-of-age story.” — The San Francisco Chronicle

A surfer dude transforms into someone captivatingly fragile, and Ballantine's novel becomes something tender, vulnerable, even sweet without that ickly, cloying literary aftertaste. This vulnerability separates Ballantine's work from his chosen peers. Calmer than Bukowski, less portentous than Kerouac, more hopeful than West, Poe Ballantine may not be sitting at the table of his mentors, but perhaps he deserves his own after all. — The San Diego Union-Tribune

It's a compelling, quirky read. — The Oregonian

Poe Ballantine has created an extremely fast page-turner. Edgar, in first-person narrative, is instantly likeable, and his constant misadventures flow seamlessly. Partially analyzed daydreams hint at an intriguing adolescent intellect without rambling on into psychological overkill. Ballantine paints southern California with voluptuous detail. Green suns, kaleidoscopic blue eyes, yellow moons and other Lucky Charms marshmallows decorate Edgar's acid-tinged world with an effect more tangible than psychedelic. The blank gloom of the hospital and the florid '70s California coast serve as the arena for this initiation into adulthood. — Willamette Week

God Clobbers Us All succeed[s] on the strength of its characterization and Ballantine's appreciation for the true-life denizens of the Lemon Acres rest home. The gritty daily details of occupants of a home for the dying have a stark vibrancy that cannot help but grab one's attention, and the off-hours drug, surf, and screw obsessions of its young narrator, Edgar Donahoe, and his coworkers have a genuine sheen that captivates almost as effectively. — The Absinthe Literary Review

A wry and ergoty experience. — Gobshite Quarterly

That the resulting melange of a plot draws the reader's attention from the first page and leaves one wanting more is a tribute to a storyteller with a keen sense of irony, a precise power of observation, a deep understanding of psychology, and a lyrical command of language... It's not just an eccentric plot that keeps God Clobbers Us All afloat though, Ballantine's prose carries metaphorical powers that make a day of mediocre surfing into a symphony, soften even the harsh indignity of an unintended nursing home death, and illuminate the distorted reality of psychedelic hallucination. — The Chadron Record

Ballantine pulls no punches as he writes about Edgar's life in the 1970's. But even though his sexual and drug-related stories are graphic, they are not disturbing. He has a way with words, and this story takes on a life of its own. It's easy to get involved in the story after page three. After page three, you're hooked; it's that simple. — Book Review Cafe

In Ballantine's world, the trip between a joyful guffaw and overwhelming hopelessness takes the blink of a well-turned sentence. It doesn't seem to matter what our particular take on life is; the stories teem with such substantial realism and human interest that we have no choice but to disregard our individual dispositions and get on the bus for the next disappointing town, the next rainy bus stop … The stories are well worth the price of admission. —The Absinthe Literary Review

Part social commentary, part collective biography, this guided tour may not be comfortable, but one thing's for sure: You will be at home.— Willamette Week

Meet the new guide on the lonesome highway. Poe Ballantine’s wry voice, clear eye, hilarious accounts and lyrical language bring us up short by reminding us that America has always been about flight, and for most of its citizens it has been about defeat. His wanderings, drifters, bad motels, cheap wine, dead-end jobs and drugs take us home, the home Betty Crocker never lived in. We’re on the road again, but this time we know better than to hope for a rumbling V-8 and any answers blowing in the wind. The bus has been a long time coming, but thank God it has arrived with Mr. Ballantine aboard. Sit down, give him a listen and make your own list of Things I Like About America. —Charles Bowden, author of Blues for Cannibals and Blood Orchid.

Poe Ballantine reminds us that in a country full of identical strip malls and chain restaurants, there’s still room for adventure. He finds the humor in situations most would find unbearable and flourishes like a modern-day Kerouac. With his funny, honest prose, Ballantine explores the important questions about being an American: Do I have enough money to buy this bucket of KFC? Can I abide another sixteen-hour Greyhound bus trip? Did my crazy roommate steal my beer again? It’s a book to cherish and pass on to friends. —Mark Jude Poirier, author of Unsung Heroes of American Industry and Goats.

Poe Ballantine makes sense of American alienation: the impulse to roam endlessly looking for the thing we know doesn’t exist and that place where we belong that could be anywhere. He makes writing really well seem effortless, even as he’s telling us how painful writing is. He knows that life is the most funny when it shouldn’t be, and that the heart breaks the most during small moments. These stories are shining gems. He kills me, this guy. —Mimi Pond, author of Splitting Hairs: The Bald Truth About Bad Hair Days.

In his search for the real America, Poe Ballantine reminds me of the legendary musk deer, who wanders from valley to valley and hilltop to hilltop searching for the source of the intoxicating musk fragrance that actually comes from him. Along the way, he writes some of the best prose I’ve ever read. —Sy Safransky, editor, The Sun.

Madison House treats readers to a boarding house full of fascinating and lovable characters as they create their own identities and contribute to early 20th century life in Seattle. Every page reflects Peter Donahue’s meticulous and imaginative recreation of a lively and engaging moment in American history. I loved reading this novel and sharing in the pleasures and labors of the diverse and authentic inhabitants of a remarkable city. —Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Four Spirits and Ahab’s Wife

Peter Donahue crafts a resplendent novel examining life in Seattle in the early 20th century, complete with a Dickensian cast of unforgettable characters; a handsome edition from a rising literary house in Portland. —Seattle Post Intelligencer

The historical detail is compelling and effectively interlaced with the action. Those interested in the history of the Northwest will find much to savor here. —Booklist

An ambitious novel... Donahue’s story is a paean to a significant part of the city’s history. —The Seattle Times

Madison House is reminiscent of the tomes of the 19th century - filled with descriptive passages and forays into the lives of various characters, telling, ultimately, the tale of Seattle's emergence as a city during the first decade of the 20th century. The author's research shows, but does not intrude. The characters are unique and believable... Peter Donahue has penned a memorable chronicle of life in the Pacific Northwest one hundred years ago. —The Historical Novels Review

A richly atmospheric debut novel. —Elliott Bay Book Company

Donahue's affecting literary narrative successfully incorporates social, political, and cultural history as seen through the eyes of the dispossessed, disadvantaged, and disenfranchised in a pivotal time in Seattle's history. —The Absinthe Literary Review

Riffing on language and revising her jokes in nervous flurries, Nita is the most endearingly teary clown since Smokey Robinson.” —Entertainment Weekly

Clown Girl is a devilishly quirky look at a downtrodden young clown adrift in the hostile streets of Baloneytown. It is a worthy fictional successor to another Rose City female writer's highly original novel with not-dissimilar material -- Katherine Dunn's Geek Love, an instant idiosyncratic classic about freaks in a traveling carnival that was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1989. —Seattle Post Intelligencer

Welcome to wacky, stressful Baloneytown, where clown prostitution, stoned dogs and fire juggling-cum-arson are the norm. [T]he pace of the narrative is methamphetamine-frantic, as Drake drills down past the face paint and into Nita's core, often using Nita's relations with men as the bit. Nita emerges as a fully-realized character, bearing witness to a lot of the emotionally ridiculous and just a hint of the sublime. [T]here is a lot more going on here than just clowning around. —Publishers Weekly

Sniffles, the titular clown girl, is endearingly self-deprecating, an oddball comic who masks her insecurity with a show of bravado and, more literally, a crazy array of clown garb. Clown Girl is a polished, quirky and often-funny look at the dark side of clown life. —Winnipeg Free Press

Can a farce involving strap-on “pendulous breasts,” a rubber chicken called Plucky, biblical balloon tricks, a marijuana-eating puppy, clown fetishists and the phrase “EKG=Nazis” also succeed as a work of psychological realism? Monica Drake's debut novel Clown Girl leads me to believe the answer is yes. Clown Girl's pages give off the perfume of sun-baked concrete, cinnamon, turpentine, spilled beer, bruised fruit, piss and clown grease. It's a sharp and engaging debut—which I suppose is a fancy way of saying I want to read it again. —Philadelphia Weekly

Drake's humor will strike some as dark, but it would be more accurately described as shades of gray shot through with hot pink. Her Nita is hilarious and poignant, fantastical and real. —The Oregonian

Drake is raising expectations with Clown Girl,, a tight, claustrophobic little tale with a charming cast of self-obsessed screwups. —Willamette Week

While clowns are visual creations who rely on their physical presence to ensnare (or terrify) their audience, Drake very deftly translates that physicality to prose—I had the urge to put the book down and applaud. —The Stranger

Clown Girl is sideways humor: social commentary disguised as pratfalls. It's surely one of the most polished and eccentric pieces of fiction to come along in recent memory, the result of several years' work by this talented Portland writer. Drake's humor won't compute for every reader. Just the smart ones who dig gray and hot-pink neon. —Seattle Times

Drake's imagination is boundless, her compassion intense. No matter how absurd a situation this antiheroine gets herself into, it's impossible not to will her to get back out. The strange world that Drake creates in Clown Girl is peculiarity entrancing and wholly, vividly imagined: You can substitute any put-upon, impoverished, outside-the-mainstream or even simply imperfect sort of individual or group for her clowns, or you can read Clown Girl as a gorgeous mix of character study and unlikely manifesto about the artist's place in the world. —Eugene Weekly

Monica Drake’s Clown Girl is a high-voltage creation. She’s a passionate martyr to the art of clowning in a slapstick world that despises and exploits clowns. She’s hit a rough patch where the pratfalls hurt and the locals don’t get her jokes. She’s Groucho one hour, Chaplin the next, and a hospitalized Stooge or three by sunrise. She’s sad as Emmett Kelly, indignant as Holden Caulfield. Maybe she’s wrong. She’s certainly cranky. But Clown Girl is mesmerizing, drunk on the high wire, gorgeous and dangerous fun.

—Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love

Clown Girl is an extreme novel⎯beyond metaphor, a hilarious book that asks the startling question: what does it mean to be serious about clowning? This intelligent narrative always keeps in mind the bleakness and desperation that initially caused a need for clowns, and that they, in their way, embody. Is there exaggeration in the book’s narrator, or in its world, or neither, or both? I found myself asking if I were myself a clown⎯and if not, why not? Caulrophiles and caulrophobes, prepare yourselves!—Peter Rock, author of The Unsettling

Monica Drake’s Clown Girl is a bright shining bubble of a novel, dark, funny and deeply strange. The writing is brilliant—I would read this novel for the sentences alone—but it is Sniffles herself and her struggles to come to grips with life in Baloneytown that stay with me. The word “unique” is widely abused but I think, for once, it’s justified: this novel is not much like anything else, and all the better for it. A really exciting debut. —Kevin Canty, author of Winslow in Love

If you can’t get enough of Monica Drake and want to read more, check out:

The Atlantic Journal-Constitution (www.ajc.com)

Statesman Journal (www.statesmanjournal.com)

Thereby Hangs a Tale (www.therebyhangsatale.com)

Suicide Girls (www.suicidegirls.com)

Fancy Pants Incorporated (www.fancypantsincorporated.com)

Anhedonia Poetry (http://anhedoniapoetry.blogspot.com)

Portland Monthly Magazine (February issue)

Seattle Monthly Magazine (March issue)

Resonance Magazine (March issue)

Indiana Review (Summer Issue)

Eugene Magazine (June issue)

How did a smart and sassy young woman end up living on the land in pure seventies style with a group of people who work as Donut Brothers going door-to-door selling for Our Father’s Bakery? Fallon takes us into the life of a born-again commune with compassion and humor — and she's an ungodly good guide. —Louise Rafkin, author of Other People’s Dirt: A Housecleaner’s Curious Adventures

So Late, So Soon is the story of one woman's misadventures in religion, but in the hands of a writer as skilled and generous as Fallon, it becomes the story of every person’s search for faith — in themselves, in others, and in the crazy ways of the world. A clear-eyed, compassionate, and rewarding book. —Bernard Cooper, author of Maps to Anywhere, winner of the 1991 PEN/Hemingway Award

I found D'Arcy Fallon's story fascinating, as will anyone who has ever wondered about the role women play in fundamental religious sects. What would draw an otherwise independent woman to a life of menial labor and subservience? Fallon's answer is this story, both an inside look at 70s commune life and a funny, irreverent, poignant coming of age. —Judy Blunt, author of Breaking Clean

A highly readable memoir.Fallon’s honest tale of her internal and external struggles within the repressed traditional construct of a garden-variety Jesus-Freak Central should be required reading for any young person who has recently “found” the Lord.

So Late, So Soon addresses the problem of spiritual hunger within the human sphere with style and a considerable eye to warts, navels, and better angels. Recommended. —The Absinthe Literary Review

The Tsar's Dwarf gets off to . . . a fine, rambunctious start. Peter H. Fogtdal . . . has talent—especially in his rendering of his narrator's biting, contrarian, misanthropic voice. Fogtdal suggests how a vigorous, questioning, nihilistic mind can be a source of strength for a social pariah. And through Sørine, he casts a steady eye on the more general whys and hows of existence . . . The English translation by . . . Tiina Nunnally has a sharp, clean edge. —THE SEATTLE TIMES

Sørine’s smart and witty . . . [her] life is mesmerizing.

—Bookdwarf.com

Fogtdal's story is grotesque and sometimes brutal, but so richly imagined that it is captivating from the start . . . Part historical fiction, part nightmare, The Tsar's Dwarf is a heart-wrenching tale of humanity

—ELLIOTT BAY BOOK CO, "Book of the Week"

Gregory Martin''s Stories for Boys is a magnetic meditation on what happens when a decades-long lie is brutally revealed. Moving, brave, and unforgettable, this deeply personal book pushes us all further into the light. Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild

Baudrillard and his ilk make one grateful for Harlan Ellison, the science-fiction novelist, who tells a story in September 11: West Coast Writers Approach Ground Zero. —New York Times

A remarkable anthology. —Los Angeles Times

September 11: West Coast Writers Approach Ground Zero deserves attention. This book has some highly thoughtful contributions that should be read with care on both coasts, and even in between. —San Francisco Chronicle

Jeff Meyers did an admirable job of soliciting material from diverse sources, and the results are sometimes startling. —The Oregonian

Fortunately, there’s new a collection of writings that looks more interesting than a book of portraits of September 11 babies.
—Seattle Weekly

Wide-awake and sensuously lyrical, Mark Mordue's Dastgah gets in behind the shell of the familiar, reminding us that the world is vast and strange and that everything is — in case we've forgotten — happening for the first time. —sven birkerts, editor of AGNI and author of My Sky Blue Trades: Growing Up Counter in a Contrary Time

An extraordinary and dazzling voyage across continents and into the mind. Mordue's book is almost impossible to summarize — reportage, reflection and poetry are all conjured onto the page as he grapples with the state of the world and his place in it. —Giles Milton, author of Nathaniel's Nutmeg: Or, the True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History

A lovely, fascinating book. —David Almond, author of The Fire-Eaters and 2003 Whitbread Award Winner

Meticulously assembled... Mordue has elevated Dastgah beyond the realms of the traditional travelogue by sharing not only what he learned about cultures he visited, but also his brutally honest self-discoveries. —Elle

A lovely impressionistic book... idiosyncratic, entertaining, vulnerable and unpretentious ... Mordue skitters between worlds, not sparing his readers the contrast. —Newsweek

Dastgah is much more about what it means to be a traveler than a travel book. This is brave writing, unafraid to open itself to awkward emotions with honesty and passion. —Marie Claire

Scott Nadelson's stories begin with some rupture--a break-up, an accident--and explore the messy results. The relative (and often self-imposed) hell in which Nadelson's characters find themselves is more than counter-balanced by the heaven of the telling. There's so much to enjoy in the bluesy aftermath: the deftly drawn characters, the world replete with all-too-normal strangeness, and the sharp-eyed, clever perceptions. I emerged from the book, as if from a movie, so lost in and convinced by the vivid screen, that the world felt a little sun-bleached in comparison. —Debra Spark, author of Good for the Jews

Nadelson stories called sophisticated, exhilarating. Jewish Review

...Seamlessly Nadelson opens a window to the workings of the human heart. Northwest Book Lovers

Nadelson is interested in the grey area between major life events, the fumbling and wrong turns, the ambiguities of heart and purpose that have become the hallmarks of young adulthood. His stories strike just the right balance between funny and sad, between the high shtick of aging Jewish parents and the raw emotion of young people experiencing their first major personal disasters. Eugene Magazine

Nadelson is master of the anticlimax. Aftermath is an often-despairing testament to the elusiveness of closure, the infinite and insurmountable distance between even intimate lovers, but also to the human capacity for growth. Portland Monthly

The former Oregon Book Award Winner’s prose is elegant in its unpretentiousness. The depth of his insight is stunning. The breadth and detail of his knowledge of the ordinary lives of men and women in widely varying walks of life is astonishing. Jewish Review

Nadelson creates characters so endearingly flawed that regardless of our actual similarities, we relate to each of them. Each page documents our own fears, insecurities, and heartbreaks. Each sentence becomes the moment we first remember hope failing. Perhaps Nadelson’s greatest accomplishment, however, is that the collection as a whole is uplifting... [the] realization that losses are universal—is comforting. Ploughshares Literary Magazine

The stories in Scott Nadelson’s The Cantor’s Daughter – set mostly in suburban New Jersey among Jewish families – seethe with psychological insight. Nadelson brings a wry and loving eye to the complexity of all relationships and to human failure, in particular to the all-too-common failure to communicate. His characters make fragile accommodations in order to continue living in less-than-optimal circumstances, and he has a striking knack for identifying the perfect, odd, specific, often body-centered detail that he then renders with such startling precision that it recasts an entire scene. —Cai Emmons, author of His Mother's Son

Nadelson, a tireless investigator of the missed opportunity, works in clear prose that possesses a tremolo just below the surface. His narratives about contemporary American Jews are absorbing and satisfying, laying bare all manner of human imperfections and sweet, sad compensatory behaviors. —Stacey Levine, author of My Horse and Other Stories and Dra--.

Nadelson is a gifted storyteller whose award-winning 2004 debut, Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories, mined similar terrain. He is adept at peeling away the superfluous layers and getting down to the unpleasant intricacies that are a part of our everyday relationships, be they parental, familial, marital, fraternal, or casual...These beautifully crafted stories are populated by Jewish suburbanites living in New Jersey, but ethnicity doesn't play too large a role here. Rather, it is the humanity of the characters and our empathy for them that binds us to their plights.— The Austin Chronicle

Nadelson, a visiting assistant professor of English at Willamette University, concerns himself with the everyday motions of living: going on vacation, a rehearsal dinner for a wedding, working and earning a living. Nadelson is particularly adept at allowing his characters, often family members, to reveal themselves as human beings complete with significant flaws...This is a thoughtful collection, compassionate yet unsparing in its observations. "Only connect," reads the oft-quoted passage from E.M. Forster's Howards End. If only the characters in these stories could.— The Oregonian

Authentic... careful stories about suburban New Jersey Jews turn on the inescapable mix of love and destruction... Nadelson bears unflinching witness to his characters' darkness. — Publishers Weekly

Nadelson tells his stories in unpretentious prose in which the writer is mostly invisible, a quality he has further refined in this second collection. It is a voice unmodulated by ego and infused with an intimacy that makes it seem almost as if the stories were being read to us alone in a quiet room. — Jewish Review

Nadelson's prose is sturdy but not flashy, almost workmanlike. As a mason lays bricks, he stacks one sentence upon another until slowly, a story emerges. — The Portland Mercury

In stories darkly comic and tragic at times, Nadelson's carefully crafted prose makes his characters' emotional shortcomings accessible to readers. Nadelson's best trick is slipping complex emotions and startling revelations between smooth and steady sentences, as a mother mixes in peas with the mashed potatoes so her child will eat his vegetables unwittingly. It is easy to become so invested in his characters' lives that it no longer matters how they became damaged; Nadelson's so engaging that the why is almost irrelevant. But the same thing that makes The Cantor's Daughter compelling—the hope that these characters will be able to put aside their problems and accept love—also makes it disappointing when a happy ending is so rare. What emerges from these complex characters is the unsettling feeling that unhealthy and painful relationships are not limited to New Jersey Jews. Those entanglements are an unfortunate fact of daily life that, according to Nadelson, force us to examine why we've become so reluctant to care about the people who care about us. — Willamette Week

A not-yet well-known award-winning author returns with a strong literary work of fiction, a quiet book that has much potential. — The Jewish Week

Nadelson writes well and his characters are convincingly real. — The Reporter

Nadelson's largest asset is his ability to write crystal-clear, eminently readable sentences. He has staked an imaginative claim on the suburbs of the Garden State and the quietly sad Jews who live there. He plays this poignant tune with grace and large reservoirs of heart.— New Jersery Jewish News

There's a certain thrill in reading a young writer coming into his own. The nuances of style, the interplay of theme and narrative, the keen and sympathetic eye for character—all rendered new by a fresh voice and talent. Scott Nadelson’s stories are bracing, lively, humorous, honest. A splendid debut. —Ehud Havazelet, author of Like Never Before and What Is It Then Between Us

Scott Nadelson’s fine first story collection achieves a rare balance between compassionate comedy and an unswerving attention to the dark trials of family life. Watching Daniel Brickman come of age was like watching a high-wire act: I held my breath for him, but felt the sure and steady net of Nadelson’s vision all along, keeping this boy, and his whole family, wildly alive. —Marjorie Sandor, author of Portrait of My Mother, Who Posed Nude in Wartime and The Night Gardener

The tortuous knots of Scott Nadelson’s Brickman family make my toes curl and my breath quicken. Equally powerful with narrative and dialogue, he is a writer in full possession of both his material and his craft. —Susan Thames, author of I’ll Be Home Late Tonight

It's thrilling to watch a young talent reach out and grasp the essence of an art form, particularly a form as rich and nuanced as the short story. In Saving Stanley, Scott Nadelson proves, line after line, that he has mastered the discipline and the delicacy required to orchestrate his chosen medium. That he does so with grace and ease, and an eye toward entertaining the reader, is a bonus matched only by the wisdom to be found here, as the members of the Brickman family inflict a series of disappointments on each other even as they try to help each other take their disappointments lightly. Smart, funny, and heartbreaking, Saving Stanley is an uncommonly exciting debut. —Tracy Daugherty, author of Five Shades of Shadow and Axeman’s Jazz

Scott Nadelson playfully introduces us to a fascinating family of characters with sharp and entertaining psychological observations in gracefully beautiful language, reminiscent of young Updike. I wish I could write such sentences. There is a lot of eros and humor here—a perfectly enjoyable book. —Josip Novakovich, author of Salvation and Other Disasters and Apricots from Chernobyl

Nadelson's writing is sharp and to the point. The family is engaging. This is a solid debut book for the Portland writer and teacher. —The Seattle Times

Focusing on small decisions and subtle shifts, Saving Stanley closely examines the frayed ties that bind. With a fly-on-the-wall sensibility and a keen sense for dramatic restraint, Nadelson is displayed here as both a promising local writer and an apt documentarian. —Willamette Week

Nadelson's compassion for the Brickman family, keen eye for detail and dialogue true to character make Saving Stanley a successful debut. —The Oregonian

Even a remarkable dreamer of nightmares like Nathanael West might have been hard-pressed to top the book’s finale…Seaview…is a very inventive work, unlike any other recent American novel in the freshness of its approach and vision. —The New York Times Book Review

The description of the game [of golf] is nicely and leisurely paced; it is suitably precise and concentrated, and the evocation of the players and the tensions that animate them is masterful. —The New Republic

Toby Olson is a superior writer of stylish and impelling prose, a storyteller of power, a recorder of human truths and a visionary. —Doris Grumback, National Public Radio

Gin Phillips has a remarkable ear for dialogue and a tenderhearted eye for detail … the ghosts of places and people and luscious peach pies, making it a strange combination of dream and nightmare, nightmare and dream.—The Los Angeles Times

A finely detailed debut … painted in precise, elegant strokes. Phillips has a gift for detail, for nailing life's little tragedies ... rarely has the innocence of childhood been as succinctly and heartbreakingly put.—Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Southern novel written by a Southern author, but it avoids most of the southern clichés.—The Stranger

Gin Phillips’ wonderful debut novel … often caught me daydreaming about childhood visits to my grandparents’ home in Mississippi. But you don’t have to be a homesick Southerner to appreciate the rich writing and piercing winsomeness that makes up Phillips’ tale of the Moore family in Depression-era Alabama.

Ultimately what makes this book such a pleasure to read is that Phillips has captured the elusive sense of Southern family and tradition. Woven throughout the story are vignettes that will transport many readers back to a wooden front porch and a glass of cold tea, to the fleeting but beloved touch of a rugged hand on a child’s sweet-smelling head.

You don’t have to be a Southerner to enjoy The Well and the Mine. You just need to be prepared to feel like one.—The Portland Tribune

A prime example of Phillips’ strength is her keen eye for the idiosyncratic and the downright strange, a talent she employs to produce hearty laughs and striking images ... whereas most writers struggle to find a voice, Gin Phillips has hers nailed.—Willamette Week

Gentle and engrossing … Phillips' atmospheric novel is full of love and depth, as are her characters, these loving, ordinary folks, and the lives they staunchly continue to lead despite unforeseeable events and their inevitable, sometimes entirely internal, consequences.—Eugene Weekly

Not since Tinkers have I read a book which, in its sheer beauty and mystery, has carried me off the way The Luminist has. Every sentence is a small miracle; every character glows with a complex elegance, as if seen by candlelight. David Rocklin's lush rendering of raw, unstable, colonial Ceylon will be etched in my memory for a long, long time. Superb. —Mylène Dressler, author of The Deadwood Beetle

In this extraordinary debut, David Rocklin takes us to the heart of photography's unlikely origins through language that shimmers like the art of light itself. As creative obsession fuses with political crisis in Colonial Ceylon, the result is one unforgettable story. The Luminist is a gorgeous evocation of era, place, and human passion.

—Aimee Liu, author of Flash House and Cloud Mountain

This book is one of those few in which an author’s specific sensibilities nourish the text, as Abraham Verghese’s multi-geographic heritage and his physician’s life inform Cutting For Stone and Andrea Barrett’s fiction, from Ship Fever to Servants of the Map, owes its density and savor to the botanic and historiographic facts that beguile her. David Rocklin’s The Luminist, is a weave of legend and history, science and art, politics and domesticity that are symphonic themes in the main title, the story of an enduring and forbidden friendship. —From the Introduction by Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of No Time to Wave Goodbye and The Deep End of the Ocean

Ceylon of the 19th century is more than the setting for David Rocklin’s richly imagined and deeply moving novel. It is the central character, a world no less alienated and scarred than the people who inhabit it. That Rocklin chooses to capture the rawness of those lives through the nascent lens of photography is even more impressive, lending the novel a lyricism that comes as both a shock and a comfort. —Jonathan Rabb, author of Shadow and Light and The Second Son

An absolute spellbinder. In Victorian-era Ceylon, amidst colonial strife and natural splendor, taboo love unfolds. Debut novelist Rocklin blends the love-and-war sweep of Dr. Zhivago with the Heart of Darkness depth of Joseph Conrad. History, art, celebratory feminism, rapturous writing and true suspense— this is a staggeringly good book. Kirkus

Danger boils under the surface throughout, ready to explode. The Luminist highlights a moment in history when the world is transforming and the very fabric of society is being stretched in unheard of ways. It serves as a snapshot as vivid as those Catherine tries to create, intended to cause people to see things in new ways. ForeWord

Rocklin’s debut novel… is beautifully written, especially the scenes where Eligius works with Catherine in her experiments…If Rocklin plays to his strengths, he will be a writer to watch. Publishers Weekly

Hailed by Jacqueline Mitchard as a novel that "recalls Out of Africa", The Luminist uses its mix of dark and light to burn an image into our minds that is sure to remain. The Write Place at the Write Time

A meaty literary historical novel, especially good for those who like fiction that tackles religion, loss, identity, motherhood, the creative urge, colonialism, conflict, love, inspiration ... the list of themes could go on and on, but I'll stop. This is a unique debut and I'm excited for Rocklin's next offering. Unabridged Chick: Enthusiastic Book Rviews

Rocklin manages to do what... the American novel does best: refract the diffuse light of everyday existence into the concentrated radiance of art. The Faster Times

Powerful, absorbing, stunning and sobering, this book is an unvarnished, revealing, sad, and painful portrayal of a struggle that continues, and of a tortured but hopeful soul striving to do good.—Barry Morrison, Regional Director, Anti-Defamation League

Frank Meeink's life story is a window into a world where hatred works like a drug. It is a compelling and cautionary tale. —Kenneth Stern, Director on Antisemitism and Extremism, American Jewish Committee

I was unable to put this book down. Frank's story pulled me in to the point I felt I was living it with him, like I was skating alongside him as he overcame the odds and changed his life and, along the way, proved how hockey and other sports can change other kids' lives, too." —Bobby Ryan, Anaheim Ducks, National Hockey League

Frank’s transformation provides us commanding proof that reconciliation is possible even for those most tightly bound by hatred. —Jesse Dylan, Director of the Obama campaign’s Yes We Can video and the documentary Reconciliation

As a white man trying to stand in solidarity with folks of color in the struggle against racism, I am heartened by Frank Meeink's story. His narrative confirms that we as white folks have a choice when it comes to how we wish to live in this skin. We can remain silent, or even collaborate with the subordination of peoples of color, or we can become allies in the fight for justice. Meeink has made his choice. May we all have the courage and fortitude to do the same. Nothing less than the fate of our nation depends on it. —Tim Wise, author, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son

Leaving Brooklyn will stay with the reader, and remain...in our literature, a small masterpiece. —The Boston Globe

Leaving Brooklyn is an enormously intelligent novel about female initiation...frankly I’ve never read anything quite like it. It’s got an odd shape...the prose is very subdued...and it still lingers in my mind. — NPR, All Things Considered

The blend of lyricism and history, of memory and the imagination – all shot through with the female erotic – is wonderful. —Russell Banks

An electrifying book...it took my breath away. Audrey is every one of us at fifteen. —Maxine Kumin

A taut, brutal narrative...that comes to hypnotize, shimmering like the brilliant sun on the alfalfa fields. —New York Times Book Review

Forceful and moving... Spanbauer tells his short, brutal story with delicacy and deep respect for place and character. —Publishers Weekly

If the Green Man of medieval lore appeared in Oregon — the mystic version of Strelow’s Oregon — and if the ghost of Kesey helped keep the tale irreverent but strangely tender for place, person, and our chance, then you would hold in your hands The Greening of Ben Brown. And so you do. Let this quiet mystery take you where you need to be. — Kim Stafford, author of The Muses Among Us and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft

With its richly cultivated and carefully tended prose, The Greening of Ben Brown is a compelling examination of community and what it means to love the land, for, as these characters teach us, there shall never be another quite like it. — Gina Ochsner, author of The Necessary Grace to Fall.

The Greening of Ben Brown is about communities, physical and emotional. It is a tale of wonders and everyday things. This is a wise book. While it might seem to be intrinsically about the Northwest, it is about universal things. Not many novels mean as much, entertain as much and stimulate as much as The Greening of Ben Brown.—Statesman Journal

The Greening of Ben Brown is an intriguing debut novel. —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

An English teacher at Willamette University, Strelow resonates as both poet and storyteller. In creating inhabitants of a town, its central figure and a strong sense of place, he lays on description lavishly, almost breathlessly, in both broad and detailed strokes. The author lovingly invokes a particular brand of Pacific Northwest magic realism, a blend of fable, social realism, wry wisdom and irreverence that brings to mind Ken Kesey, Tom Robbins and the best elements of a low-key mystery. —The Oregonian

Strelow’s powerful descriptive language in The Greening of Ben Brown proves beyond a doubt that he is an author to watch in the future. —Jackson Free Press

Debut novelist Michael Strelow’s prose is wonderfully descriptive, especially in describing the natural characteristics of East Leven, and clearly demonstrates his affection for the state he’s called home for more than thirty years. —The Absinthe Literary Review

Wonderful...Original...Terrific...Haunting...Reading Soldiers in Hiding is like watching a man on a high wire! —Los Angeles Times

Extraordinary...a feat of the imagination rendered with surprising skill...you'll remember this book for a long time. —Chicago Sun Times

Intelligent and interesting...daring and entirely convincing. —The Washington Post

A mature novel...the spirit of Graham Green is here. —Kirkus Reviews

Admirable, smooth, dispassionate...for an American to write from a Japanese standpoint, regardless of how long he has studied their culture, is an act of extreme literary bravery. —Christian Science Monitor

A work of exceptional power and imagination. —Publishers Weekly

Superb...First-Rate...Ingeniously plotted with surprising twists and turns that continually move the story in unexected directions. —Seattle Times

Richly imagined and wonderfully written...Richard Wiley is a first-rate talent! —Cleveland Plain Dealer

Satisfying...draws the reader into a combination of surprising plot turns and richly textured characters. —Atlanta Journal-Constitution

I love this book and I am thankful that Lidia Yuknavitch has written it for me and for everyone else who has ever had to sometimes kind of work at staying alive. It’s about the body, brain, and soul of a woman who has managed to scratch up through the slime and concrete and crap of life in order to resurrect herself. The kind of book Janis Joplin might have written if she had made it through the fire - raw, tough, pure, more full of love than you thought possible and sometimes even hilarious. This is the book Lidia Yuknavitch was put on the planet to write for us. —Rebecca Brown, author of The Gifts of the Body

...All sex scenes were shit, except for the sex written by Lidia Yuknavitch. She read us the first chapter of her novel Small Backs of Children (due out with Hawthorne Books) while we all followed along with the copies she’d passed out. They say that alcoholics remember their first drink, that lightening feeling in your body that says yes-yes-let’s-feel-this-way-all-the-time--well I will always remember the first time I heard Lidia Yuknavitch read. —From the Introduction by Chelsea Cain, New York Bestseller and author of Evil at Heart

This intensely powerful memoir touches depths yet unheard of in contemporary writing. I read it at one sitting and wondered for days after about love, time, and truth. Can't get me any more excited than this. —Andrei Codrescu, author of The Poetry Lesson

From the moment I picked up The Chronology of Water, I couldn't put it down, and I thought about it long after I'd finished. Rarely do you find talent like Lidia Yuknavitch's. Reading this book is like diving into Yuknavitch's most secret places, where, really, we all want memoir to take us, but it so rarely does. The reader emerges wiser, enlightened, and changed. —Kerry Cohen, author of Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity

I've read Ms. Yuknavitch's book The Chronology of Water, cover to cover, a dozen times. I am still reading it. And I will, most likely, return to it for inspiration and ideas, and out of sheer admiration, for the rest of my life. The book is extraordinary. —Chuck Palahniuk, author of Pygmy

The Chronology of Water’s central metaphor works beautifully: we all keep our heads above water, look around, and enjoy our corporeal life despite all the reasons not to; beyond that, the book is immensely impressive to me on a human level: the narrator/speaker/protagonist/author emerges from a seriously hellish childhood and spooky adolescence into a middle age not of bliss, certainly, but of convincing engagement and satisfaction. —David Shields, author of Reality Hunger: A Manifesto

Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir The Chronology of Water is a brutal beauty bomb and a true love song. Rich with story, alive with emotion, both merciful and utterly merciless, I am forever altered by every stunning page. This is the book I’m going to press into everyone’s hands for years to come. This is the book I've been waiting to read all of my life. —Cheryl Strayed, author of Torch

This isn't a memoir ‘about’ addiction, abuse, or love: it's a triumphantly unrelenting look at a life buoyed by the power of the written word. — Publishers Weekly

‎I'm also convinced that this bold and highly unconventional book -- hot, gritty, unrelenting in its push to dismantle the self and then, somehow, put the self back together again -- gets not just under a reader's skin but seeps all the way into her bloodstream. —Debra Gwartney, The Oregonian

Artfully described in prose that’s as spare and beautiful as a diver slicing through the water. —Foreword Reviews

Write like a terrorist just busted in and threatened to kill you all-like you have a semi-automatic machine gun at your skull," acclaimed author Ken Kesey told Lidia Yuknavitch one day during a writing workshop. Luckily for us, she followed his advice crowding The Chronology of Water with intimate confessions of rage and longing. She takes us on a journey through addiction, sexual exploration, and perhaps most intriguing of all, through creation: of literature, of memories, and of life. Her sharp prose-witty, jarring, worthy of dogearing- alternates between gleeful postmodern exercise and wrenching elegy. So honest and unapologetic is her writing that you can practically hear her sigh in catharsis as you turn the pages. —Molly Labell, Bust

The Chronology of Water is powerful and beautifully written--even the tough parts.”— Bridget Kinsella, Shelf Awareness

Yuknavitch’s nonlinear memoir that is at times lyrical, at times conversational, and almost always intense. ”—Anca Sziagyi, Ploughsares

I love how physical the book is, both in its writing and in its point of view. Her body threatened to rise up from every single page I read. It's war in there. I'm going back in. —Jen Graves, The Stranger

Lidia Yuknavitch is a self-proclaimed language bandit. Other writers purposely disturb their readers' comprehension, because, well, they want to change language as we know it. Yuknavitch's The Chronology of Water plays with language, but it also brings an extra dimension to the wordsmith memoir: it's a sputteringly good read. —Alison Barker, Chicago Reader

Literary prose that embraces the experience of being a female, in a female body, occupying space in the world—it doesn't come along too often. But here it is, and it's worth your attention. —Alison Hallett, The Portland Mercury

Lidia Yuknavitch's The Chronology of Water might well turn out to be the best book of the year; it's unlike anything I've read before, and I haven't been able to forget it. —Michael Schaub, Bookslut

Lidia Yuknavitch’s unsparing memoir The Chronology of Water includes tragedy, abuse, oceanic booze consumption, and rated-X sexiness. And Ken Kesey, of course.” —Portland Monthly

If you love memoir or poetry or Ken Kesey or have ever spent time on the planet Sorrow, you’ll want to read The Chronology of Water by Portland author Lidia Yuknavitch. The memoir is somehow both brutal and dreamy—but it doesn’t collapse under the weight of its despair or lose you in the rapture of its pretty language. Yuknavitch has a powerful personal story to tell, and she does this in surprising ways. —Jamie Passaro, PNBA Northwest Book Lovers

I fucking loved this book and I strongly encourage anyone reading this to buy the book immediately and then keep it beneath your pillow or shove it down your pants or crack open your rib cage and hold the book next to your heart. It is really that beautiful and brilliant and any number of superlatives I will spare you from for the sake of decorum. —Roxane Gay, HTMLGIANT

Portland writer Lidia Yuknavitch seeks out conventions in life and art, then tears them down, in her exhaustively compelling memoir, The Chronology of Water, a book that is as much the making of a singular artistic voice as it is a document of a life that could have yielded a dozen memoirs. —Emily Grosvenor, Eugene Magazine

The Chronology of Water is the kind of book that makes you want to hug it to your heart, kiss its cover, run your fingertips over the edge of each page…Yuknavitch has this uncanny ability of making me feel like she’s reaching out of the book and past my skin and into my ribcage and then there’s her fist around my heart, synchronizing my pulse with the pace of her prose…The Chronology of Water is a vital book—a book that will be, as Kafka famously demanded, the axe for the frozen sea within you. —Kirsty Logan, Pank Magazine

Lidia Yuknavitch is an inspiring woman. Her story brought me to tears several times. The abuse she survived, ingested, and spit out in order to transform herself into the swan that she is today…was indeed a life-changing upbringing. Her story is haunting, touching, and heart breaking. —Richard Thomas, The Nervous Breakdown

The most compelling thing about this story is not its raw palpability, but rather the pure hope and unabashed joy infused in its last chapters. Chronology is about the resiliency of the human heart and its ability to piece itself back together, over and over. —Vanessa Nix Anthony, Portland Woman Magazine

It's rather a relief that this is not an addiction memoir or a book about too much sex, although there's lots of great randy sex on these pages. The Chronology of Water is simply an unapologetic story about life. —Renee E. D’Aoust, The Collagist

Speaking of water … as its title suggests, Lidia Yuknavitch’s fierce new memoir, The Chronology of Water (blurbed by Shields, among several eminent authors) takes place” entirely off-shore, metaphorically speaking. Nothing about her life has followed the map. Yuknavitch gives new, rich meaning to the by-now-familiar idea of a fluid sexuality. —Amy McDaniel, Paste Magazine

She seemingly leaves out much that could garner easy emotional manipulation and sympathy but does not do the right work for the story. The result is one of the strongest memoirs I have had the pleasure to encounter. Don’t miss this book.——David Atkinson, The Rumpus

I'm not sure I've ever had such a powerful, complex reaction to a book. The Chronology of Water is astonishingly beautiful, and, as a writer, Yuknavitch is a force. Her writing hits you, hard. It rocks you. She knocked me over with passages so brilliant, so true, I had to reread them over and over until I could bear to let them go in order to move on to the next paragraph. —Megan Zabel, Powell’s Books

"...brave and breathless memoir... vividstorytelling." Los Angeles Review of Books

I cannot fathom of a list of the ten best books of the year that does not include Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water... one of the most stunning books I’ve ever read and undoubtedly the best book I read in 2011. Roxane Gay, The Rumpus

Yuknavitch doesn't use words just because they sound pretty. Her language, inventive and sparse, is determined to leave its readers spinning in realness, the physical grit of being present as a woman and as a human being. Nina Lary, Bitch