ADVANCED PRAISE FOR SLEEPOVERS

“This collection stands out in the field of current Southern fiction.”

—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, STARRED REVIEW

“A deeply human, unforgettable debut.”

—BOOKLIST

“Sleepovers is an unflinching collection through which the complexities, curiosities, and complications of rural Southern life come through.”

—FOREWORD REVIEWS

“I see in this collection a steely writer, one deeply moved by her place and her people, but also fully committed to the truth no matter how dark or difficult or complicated it may be.”

—LAUREN GROFF, CONTEST JUDGE AUTHOR OF FLORIDA

“There’s some kind of crazy magic at work here—the way that Ashleigh Bryant Phillips takes all the little pieces of daily life that are there in plain sight just laying around and when she gathers them together they become holy, hilarious, transcendent, and unspeakably beautiful. Phillips is shockingly talented.”

—MESHA MAREN, AUTHOR OF SUGAR RUN

“With Sleepovers, Phillips has intimately given us an entirely new way of seeing traditional life in small-town America. This book is so hard-core, so hard-won, so much a fabric of complicated gorgeous beauty. This is a book unlike any other written before it.”

—REBECCA LEE, AUTHOR OF BOBCAT AND OTHER STORIES

“I can’t remember a time when I’ve read a story collection so funny and sad and lyrical, all at the same time. In Sleepovers, Ashleigh Bryant Phillips gives us a book that’s so much more than a story collection. This book is haunted.”

—SCOTT MCCLANAHAN, AUTHOR OF THE SARAH BOOK

“Every once in awhile, a book comes along and slugs you upside the head, making you wonder why you’ve been wasting your time with those other comparably bland and polite books. Sleepovers is that book, that slugger. Ashleigh Bryant Phillips is a dazzling and mighty talent.”

—JULIET ESCORIA, AUTHOR OF JULIET THE MANIAC

“Like me, I’m sure you will also feel like you’re sitting on a porch listening to these stories, knowing they’re being told to you out of necessity from an urgent and generous place.”

—STEVEN DUNN, AUTHOR OF WATER & POWER

“Ashleigh Bryant Phillips’ voice helps readers understand that being nurtured and wounded by the South can cause various times, and places, and norms to be mixed up together.”

—CLYDE EDGERTON, AUTHOR OF RANEY

“The people in these stories are unflinching, and undeniably, uncomfortably real. We know these folks from the post office, the grocery store, from church. This book is otherworldly beautiful.”

—WENDY BRENNER, AUTHOR OF PHONE CALLS FROM THE DEAD