The Goat Fish and the Lover's Knot: (Made in Michigan Writers)

Beautifully-crafted prose from one of Michigan's most original voices. Elmore Leonard said about Jack Driscoll's stories, "The guy can really write." And in The Goat Fish and the Lover's Knot, he once again demonstrates in every sentence the grace and grit of a true storyteller. The ten stories are mostly set in Michigan's northern lower peninsula, a landscape as gorgeous as it is severe. If at times the situations in these stories appear hopeless, the characters nonetheless, and even against seemingly impossible odds, dare to hope. These fictional individuals are so compassionately rendered that they can hardly help but be, in the hands of this writer, not only redeemed but made universal. The stories are written from multiple points of view and testify to Driscoll's range and understanding of human nature, and to how "the heart in conflict with itself" always defines the larger, more meaningful story. A high school pitching sensation loses his arm in a public school classroom during show and tell. A woman lives all of her ages in one day. A fourteen-year-old boy finds himself alone after midnight in a rowboat in the middle of the lake with his best friend's mother. Driscoll is a prose stylist of the highest order -- a voice as original as the stories he tells. Lovers of contemporary storytelling will revel in Driscoll's skill and insight on display in this unique collection.

About the Author :
Jack Driscoll is a two-time NEA Creative Writing Fellowship recipient and the author of eleven books, including the short story collections Wanting Only to Be Heard, winner of the AWP Short Fiction Award, and The World of a Few Minutes Ago (Wayne State University Press, 2012), winner of the Society of Midland Authors Award and the Michigan Notable Book Award. His stories have appeared widely in journals, including The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, Ploughshares, Missouri Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, the Pushcart Prize Anthology, and New Stories from the Midwest. He currently teaches in Pacific University's low-residency MFA program in Oregon.

Review :
And you remember you're in the hands of a pro. That he's writing from a tradition, from a terrain. That he's interested in something authentic. He's giving us gentle reminders; how in spite of our flaws and weakness, snow and stars can still slide in. Grace and "God spots" too. --Emily Sernaker "The Rumpus" Driscoll is a prose stylist of the highest order with a voice as original as the stories he tells. Lovers of contemporary storytelling will revel in Driscoll's skill and insight on display in this unique collection. -- "The Alpena News" Gearing up or slowing down, these short stories from [ . . . ] Jack Driscoll are a great way to leap into summer reading. --Glen Young "Petoskey News" It's no wonder Jack Driscoll has been singled out as one of America's greatest writers. The ten stories in his new book are elegantly written. --Lisa Lenzo "Interlochen Public Radio" Like all Driscoll's stories, the ones in this brilliant new collection beg to be read aloud...The Goat Fish and the Lover's Knot is filled with vivid characters and compelling plots, but, in the end, it's the language that makes a Jack Driscoll story a Jack Driscoll story. Which, as many would agree, is the best kind of story there is. --Sharon Harrigan "The Nervous Breakdown" Moving across place and memory, these stories are technically dazzling and deeply affecting accounts of precarious lives in a unique environment. --Alexander Moran "Booklist (Advanced Review)" Set mostly in Northern Michigan, these precise, intricately constructed stories feel crystalline in their authenticity. Driscoll is a masterful writer who makes it look easy. --Dawn Raffel "Big Other" The ten stories in The Goat Fish and the Lover's Knot come from the pen of a writer who always tells the truth, but also understands that truth is more than just cobwebs and dark places. Though his characters are down on their luck in some ways, they look to the future with a hopefulness and sense of grace that seems to light the world beyond the page. --Mary Stewart Atwell "fictionwritersreview.com" The writing in this collection of stories is wonderful, the characters are raw, some stuck in their hopeless lives and old enough to know it's not going to get better, others are scratching to escape households where their parents are miserable with the struggle of staying afloat, some still altered after being burned by love physically, bottom dwellers and those just 'knocking around'. The children are just as perceptive and believable as the grown ups, maybe a little criminal but for good purposes. --Lolly K Dandeneau "bookstalkerblog" The Goat Fish and the Lover's Knot, ten stories comprising Jack Driscoll's eleventh book, provides all the proof any judge of literature would need to place Driscoll near the top of what America has to offer in the way of supremely gifted writers. --Duff Brenna "The Education of Oronte Churm" There's a beauty here, both in language and in content, and Driscoll is the master of capturing a delicate humanity where most people might be least likely to look. It is no accident that this collection ends with a story about miracles, and the arc of this book as a collection is beautiful and deliberate. Narrative's tension comes from time, after all, and what is time but a life unfolding? --Natalie Bakopoulos "Fiction Writers Review" Upper Peninsula Bestseller List for May 2017 -- "Great Lakes Review"