Praise for The End of Vandalism

‘A major figure in American literature, author of a string of novels without a dud in the bunch … Drury gives us the wondrous and engaging stuff of real storytelling’
DANIEL HANDLER, NEW YORK TIMES

‘Brilliant, wonderfully funny … It’s hard to think of any novel – let alone a first novel – in which you can hear the people so well. This is indeed deadpan humor, and Tom Drury is its master.’
ANNIE DILLARD

‘What excellent champagne Tom Drury is. He makes you feel smarter and funnier than you have any real right to. Under his spell you can appreciate both the scary emptiness and the scary fullness of your life, and when you’ve finished the bottle you wish you’d had more. Drury is a big-time American talent.’
JONATHAN FRANZEN

‘Some writers are good at drawing a literary curtain over reality, and splashing upon the curtain all the colours of their fancies. And then there are the writers who raise the veil and lead us to see for the first time. Tom Drury belongs to the latter, and is a rare master at the art of seeing.’
YIYUN LI

‘Here’s an author who sees and hears what others either miss or fail to note the significance of.’
RICHARD RUSSO

‘The always fresh perspective of this one-of-a-kind writer will have you responding like his character who “laughed with surprise in her heart”.’
KIRKUS REVIEWS

‘Although Drury has been compared to Garrison Keillor and Raymond Carver, he’s really in a class of one.’
LOS ANGELES TIMES

‘Drury’s fiction is chockablock with … tiny epics unfurling and resolving in quick, universally funny vignette’
BOSTON GLOBE

‘Extraordinary … This is a quiet book that grows in emotional resonance.’
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY on The End of Vandalism (A Best Book of the Year)

‘An endlessly entertaining tapestry of human comedy and small-town living.’
BOOKLIST on The End of Vandalism

‘Miraculous … reads like life itself … Drury builds a world in rural Iowa where we move in and settle and it feels so real, so plain, yet so absorbing it might be a memory of home.’
MEN’S JOURNAL on The End of Vandalism

‘Remarkable … Every so often a debut novel appears that simply stuns you with the elegance and beauty of its writing … A+’
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY on The End of Vandalism

‘Breathtaking … A remarkable achievement … At once funny, sad, and touching … Drury’s alchemy draws on the best of Keillor and Carver to produce a new alloy.’
NEW YORK NEWSDAY on The End of Vandalism