by Sam Pink

The characters in Sam Pink’s stories exist on the fringes of American culture and are barely hanging on there . . . Pink’s narrator is a noticer, a recorder, a performer of his observations in a world where little beyond the moment matters, conversation is mostly a matter of trading wisecracks and insults, and circumstances are beyond one’s control. Pink can make perfect little sentences or poke fun at the tools of his craft. He can be funny, faux-profound, loopily self-aware. And, finally, against the drumbeat of 'no real fate,' he can insist: 'There is more than this. / And I matter absolutely, until I don’t.'" —Ellen Akins, The Washington Post —