PRAISE FOR CHARLES BAXTER:

“Very few writers excel at both novels and short stories, but Charles Baxter is one of the gifted few who have. From the start of his career, his accomplishments in each have been clear and stunning . . . His work is subtly political and emotionally precise, whether registering the moods and faces of strangers or the complex of fond and hateful ways ordinary Americans converse.”  —Award of Merit, American Academy of Arts and Letters 

“Charles Baxter is nothing short of a national literary treasure. To read—hilarious, tragic, surprising, and indelibly human—is to receive revelation at the hands of a master. Who but this writer has such intimate knowledge of our most shameful depths, and who else can illuminate them with such stunning aptness of word and thought?”  —Julie Orringer, author of How to Breathe Under Water 

“Baxter evokes something like the chilling starkness and human isolation of the work of Edward Hopper . . . [He] is a warmly disposed yet unsentimental chronicler of American lives.”  —The New York Times Book Review 

“Charles Baxter’s stories proceed with steady grace, nimble humor, quiet authority, and thrilling ingeniousness . . . All are on display—as are his honoring of the mysteries of love and his dramatic explorations of American manners, mores, family, solitude, and art. He is a great writer.” —Lorrie Moore, author of Bark