RaveThe Boston Globe...[a] highly original and often disturbing book of essays ... Sure, he comes off alternately as hapless and helpless in these pieces, but I began to think of the letters as earnest quests by Daniels to discover whether there was something he could do to make himself happy, or at least happier ... The difference between The Correspondence and most of its peers is the sincere attempts Daniels makes to find out whether there is some other way for him to exist, some way to break completely with the past, with his demons, and forge a new identity through new experiences. Daniels’s work is deceptive. On one hand, the book is short, simple, and easy to read in a single sitting. But then something smacks you in the back of the head as you walk away and realize with a jolt that what you just read is deep, dark, and complex. You read it again and realize that The Correspondence is raw, funny, and contains more moments of true pathos than any piece of personal nonfiction you will encounter in a long time to come.
Chris Offutt
RaveThe Boston Globe...one of the most sensitive, nuanced examinations of father and son relationships I’ve read ... In My Father, the Pornographer,’ Offutt vividly recounts both his and his father’s flaws, but he never lets them get in the way of his search for answers to one of life’s prickliest dilemmas: fathers and sons.
