RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewReading these stories, you feel as if you’re sitting with a gifted storyteller while he spins yarns about the strange people living in his mind. The prolific Mosley delights in the wonderfully bizarre ... Each protagonist seems simple and often shallow on the surface, but as the story progresses he unfurls into greater and frankly breathtaking complexity.
Matthew Baker
MixedThe New York Times Book Review[The title story is] a story of several satirical and comedic masterstrokes, Baker at his best. The premises of the stories in Why Visit America are increasingly inventive and clever, often featuring some sort of reversal to our current social order, offering up allegorical commentary on who we are as Americans ... Baker’s premises are all intriguing and start off showing promise, but his stories often get bogged down in the setup, in explaining the mechanics of the worlds he’s created. As the narratives become baggy, the conceits wear out their welcome, and the author seems to lose sight of his characters and their distinct struggles against the forces of their societies.
Ron Rash
MixedThe New York Times Book Review... a catalog of broken people trying to survive ... The power of Rash’s stories lies in...small moments of connection amid all the noise of rupture and heartbreak. Rash writes with a direct precision that puts the reader at ease. Here is a storyteller who not only knows his characters, but knows all the details around them as well. Rash ends the book with the titular novella ... Rash maintains the novel’s linguistic precision, but the contrast to the even sparer prose of the stories that precede it makes the novella’s increased space and cast of characters feel somewhat unfocused.
