Further Praise for My Life in Heavy Metal:
“Every once in a while somebody comes up with the ability to describe the mechanics, the emotions, the raw energy of sex in such a way that you get a soaring—and sometimes searing—experience of it. Steve Almond is the latest somebody. … My Life in Heavy Metal will leave you gasping, gulping and guffawing from beginning to end.”
—Michael Alvear, Salon.com
“The best fiction I’ve read this year. Almond has a master’s touch. His stories—about a generation caught in a whatever world—are sexy, touching, funny and gorgeously written.”
—Jan Herman, MSNBC.com
“In twelve lean, emotional stories, he limns lust, passion, loss, betrayal, and office crushes. Essential reading for the man who loves too much.”
—Janet Steen, Details
“Almond’s riffs on love gone wrong are tinged with melancholy and humor as well as a robust enthusiasm for sex. … His stories capture out-of-control moments with the measured skill of a writer twice his age.”
—Playboy
“A glittering collection. Mailer and Roth are aging, and we need somebody out there willing to report on the existential pleasures of sexual engineering. Almond is just the man for the job.”
—Roger Gathman, Austin Chronicle
“None of these stories is anything less than thoroughly entertaining, and the best of them are funny, touching and disquieting. … Underneath all the sexual frankness and clever descriptions, there’s a moral sensibility at work that gives My Life in Heavy Metal a real potency.”
—Rob Thomas, Madison Capital Times
“A right hook from the fist of reality … You’ll laugh out loud, cry to yourself, blush once or twice, and end up thanking your good fortune. … [Almond’s] prose crackles with electricity, as if his sentences are plugged into massive amplifiers, shaking the readers’ rib cages, urging them to rock on in the still of the night. And under it all is the ironic drone of the modern world.”
—Greg Lalas, Boston Magazine
“My Life in Heavy Metal is an auspicious, audacious debut, absolutely confident in its tone and subject matter and boldly provocative in its ideas.”
—Stephen Deusner, Memphis Commercial Appeal
“[A] gifted storyteller … [Almond] writes with a loose, anthropological humor.”
—Claire Dederer, The New York Times Book Review
“My Life in Heavy Metal is an amazingly intricate and complex collection that takes on territory once home to F. Scott Fitzgerald—the confusion of desire and the sweet derangement of urban romance. In story after story, Steve Almond gets into the heart of American youth to portray the pleasures and terrors of contemporary intimacy with beauty and regret, humor and surprising tenderness. A brilliant, sexy debut.”
—Stewart O’Nan
“These stories are passionate, sexy and resonant. They look at relationships and dissect them without making them rosy or disgusting, heartfelt or horrible. They just show them as they are.”
—Jonathan Shipley, Oklahoman
“[Almond’s] stories mostly deal with the tumultuous topography of modern-day relationships, but they come at it from a range of characters and settings. … Almond’s writing is riveting; the characters rise from the page emotionally bared. They fumble and make mistakes, desperate for physical and spiritual connection.”
—Clay Risen, Nashville Scene
“Read this collection for more honesty and humor than you’d ever hoped to find about the hopelessness and redemption of men.”
—Erin Flanagan, The Omaha Reader
“The short story speaks to us like no other literary form, and Steve Almond is among its latest champions. I read these wonderful stories with awe, envy, and delight. Almond is a writer to watch.”
—Rick DeMarinis
“Almond’s gift is the way he confidently and almost immediately conveys the tone, setting and personalities of the twelve stories.”
—Erin J. Walter, Austin American-Statesman
“Steve Almond’s subject is the emotional terrain between lovers, and he nails it. These are dynamite stories: sexy, stylish, full of nerve and moments of uncanny wisdom. This is a writer to watch.”
—David Long
“An accomplished collection of stories … The prose is often startling.”
—Mindi Dickstein, St. Petersburg Times
“Almond has a keen ear for dialogue and an eye for the absurd.”
—Marc Mohan, The Oregonian
“Almond excels at capturing the pinwheeling physicality of sex, and he does so with a devilish sense of humor.”
—Damon Smith, Boston Phoenix