Dirt: A Novel
&#8220;Searing. . . . Vann has an extravagantly literary sensibility, and his novel is full of echoes: One thinks of the stately inevitability of classical tragedy, of Chekhov&#8217;s lost souls, of the hallucinatory quality of Faulkner&#8217;s rural fantasia, and of Stephen King&#8217;s depictions of an unraveling mind.&#8221; (Washington Post Book World)&#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of humor here, of a very dark vein. And Vann, a Guggenheim fellow, excels at sly truths&#8221; (Boston Globe)&#8220;Brilliant narrative. . . . This is a novel of violence, destruction and ruin. There is no salvation. And yet Mr. Vann&#8217;s soaring writing carries it forward-a reminder of the beauty that can grace even the beastliest things.&#8221; (The Economist)&#8220;His language is sharply funny, even as his characters enact a tragedy of Greek proportions.&#8221; (The New Yorker)&#8220;The book is wonderfully twisted, but a sinister humor keeps things from getting too bleak. What begins as a literary family drama turns slowly into a heady horror story, part Stephen King and part Immanuel Kant.&#8221; (The Daily Beast)&#8220;Brave and brilliant. . . .Dirtis showing us something unexpected, and unexpectedly stunning . . . Vann&#8217;s details here, as always, are pitch-perfect.&#8221; (San Francisco Chronicle)&#8220;Haunting.&#8221; (Financial Times)&#8220;Vann has a remarkable gift for capturing the harsh realities of a family held together by hate and violence. Riveting and impossible to put down.&#8221; (Library Journal(starred review))&#8220;Multi-award winner Vann writes undeniably powerful prose, whether he is blithely satirizing transcendental meditation, or meticulously detailing Galen&#8217;s descent into madness.&#8221; (Booklist)&#8220;David Vann excels at writing about the darkest side of the human heart. . . . Vann fully exhibits the writer&#8217;s chops that served him well in his earlier works, and he again plumbs the darker parts of the human psyche. This novel is simultaneously disturbing and haunting.&#8221; (Denver Post)&#8220;Harrowing. . . . Vann, a professor at UC San Francisco, is often compared to Cormac McCarthy; he exerts a powerful grip here, as Galen learns how far he&#8217;s willing to go to get free.&#8221; (San Jose Mercury News)&#8220;Vann truly is brave. . . . there is no denying we emerge indelibly affected.&#8221; (Philadelphia Inquirer)&#8220;This experience is prolonged to the very last page, graceful paragraph, stunning word. Then it reverberates. Vann&#8217;s book is art, and not to be missed.&#8221; (BookPage)