Easy in the Islands

“Stunning.”

—The Washington Post Book World

“Beguiling stories … about an uncommonly fascinating part of the hemisphere. Shacochis’s talent seems more than a match for the subjects at hand.”

—Time

“Brilliant.”

—The Boston Globe

“[Easy in the Islands] has more going for it than any fiction since Peter Matthiesen’s Far Tortuga or Ernest Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream.”

—The Blade (Toledo)

“Something of a Caribbean Thomas McGuane laced with Barry Hanah and Harry Crews.”

—Houston Chronicle

“Quirky and quite wonderful.”

—Saturday Review

“If there’s a better writer in the States who matches language rhythm to landscape and the beat of the heart in the Caribbean, I ain’t found him. Shacochis is top shelf, and the boy should not only be given all the prizes, but the moon over Barbados itself.”

—Barry Hannah

“Easy in the Islands is tough, funny, and wickedly knowing ... a breath of fresh air on the story scene.”

—Joy Williams

“In these stories, Bob Shacochis takes very seriously his responsibilities as an artist by extending his imagination into areas of Caribbean experience not usually perceived by an outsider. In language, humor, and evocation of detail, he succeeds in capturing, beautifully, the nuances of a completely different, nonexotic, way of life. Easy in the Islands is a very fine collection.”

—James Alan McPherson

“[Shacochis’s] stories have an unselfconscious narrative momentum—a linear drive towards an ending—that I associate with the easy ways of an old master…. I think this boy’s been writing since he was a baby.”

—John Irving