Read It! Wrap It! Love It! -- Jared Sexton's The End of All Things

My recommendation for your holiday gift giving is as timely as they come, since this book is making its debut next week, on Friday, December 21st. And I promise you, it's at the top of my Most Wanted list too -- Jared Sexton's An End to All Things.

I heard Jared read a piece from this anthology, and I was knocked upside the head. Seriously. I didn't see the wallop coming -- I mean, I sensed it, the way you can feel a pressure wave underwater when something big is swimming your way, but when it hit . . . Nope. Didn't see it coming.

I still think about that story -- about the voice, the insistent rhythms, the urgent drive of the first-person narration. The images. The set-up. The pow bang. Beautifully executed, a left hook of a story.

Here's some other things other smart, talented writers had to say:

“The stories in Jared Yates Sexton’s An End to All Things are, indeed, about ends—of relationships, of dreams, of innocence—but they also speak eloquently to the means of these ends. Laced through with booze and betrayal, and populated by half‐witted quick wits and good eggs with bad karma, Sexton’s stories get under your skin, split your ribs, and worm their way heartward.”
-Tom Noyes, author of Spooky Action at a Distance

“The characters in Jared Yates Sexton’s stories are desperate. They are obsessed. They speak a language that is part bar fight, part howl, part brokenhearted country song playing on a skipping vinyl loop. These are stories you want to listen to as much as read, full of fierce and searing and melancholy truths.”
-Chad Simpson, author of Tell Everyone I Said Hi

So keep a spot open on your gift list for this one. December 21st. Go get it.I know I'm hoping I've been good enough that somebody will get it for me.