Thanks to Kevin Fortuna's empathetic and precise portrayals, these stories will linger in your imaginationlong after the people you meet here have stumbled out into the night.
— Miles Harvey, author of The Island of Lost Maps

Kevin Fortuna's complex and compelling characters can't be separated from the equally rich familydrama and surprising twists of his narratives, always the sign of a real writer. I'm in awe of this man'simagination and this story collection. A wonderful debut.
— Joseph Boyden, Gillerprize-winning author of The Orendaand Through Black Spruce

These stories are by turns wry and funny, harrowing and heartbreaking. Kevin Fortuna writes withstartling clarity and insight about success, hope and longing and about people struggling to do the rightthing, and sometimes failing. He writes with his heart and his head and with a sheer ballsy velocity youdon't come across very often.
— Kevin Moffett, author of Further Interpretations of RealLifeEvents and The Silent History

With clear, exacting prose Kevin Fortuna presents damaged yet indelible characters grappling withshame, pain, and darkness as they teeter on the brink. One gets the sense that these men and womenare only hanging on by a thread, and Fortuna triumphs by refusing to let us look away.
— Skip Horack, Stegner Fellow and award-winning author of The Southern Cross and The EdenHunter

Fortuna's people defy life by living, and suck every last breath out of a deflated balloon. They areexhilarating people with fully lived lives, expertly drawn. Fortuna's people are people you'd want toknow, whose lives you may well admire. They may even be you.
— Mark Warren, Executive Editor of Esquire