All That Is Left Is All That Matters Stories [Hardcover]

Slouka showcases not merely his productivity and versatility, but his gift for creating consistently engaging and emotionally resonant stories in whatever literary form he chooses. . . . stories as tender and beautiful as these are among those things that might, paradoxically, serve to persuade thoughtful readers that life is worth living.Crisp, poignant. . . . These are subtle, meditative, well-crafted stories, death-backed but life-affirming.The power in the memories [Slouka] so intensely evokes is heart stopping in its beauty, liberating in its acknowledgment of essential truths. . . . Put Slouka's work in the hands of fans of the RichardsFord, Powers, and Russoand watch what happens.Disquieting, sharply compressed short stories. . . . Even the most seemingly casual of these tales vibrate with danger, and together, they create the sense of a world where unendurable loss is just one misplaced footstep away.Mark Slouka is one of the best American writers alive today, and the title of his new story collection is perfect: this is essential stuff, and it will break your heart.The subtlety of these wonderful stories takes you by stealth. They leave you with the startled feeling that youve traveled a long distance and emerged in an unexpected new place. Mark Slouka is a writer of enormous and unusual gifts, and he offers them graciously and with an appealing wryness.Mark Slouka perfectly breaks open my heart with each truthful, gorgeous sentence. I wish I could write out for you all the sentences and passages I underlined. But that would be the whole shebang, the whole damn book.Few writers convey the urgencies of the heart like Mark Slouka does. Remorse, betrayal, fear, mortalitylove, most of allin these wondrous stories the most powerful emotions shine from the smallest details: the lonely creak of oarlocks, the silence of a man about to cry, the groan of a screen door opening a lifetime ago, the lies with which we console ourselves against inevitalãp