"...Michael Goodwin Hilton’s short story collection, his first, is a sweet antidote to a lot of the bloodless swill in contemporary publishing. Hilton’s stories, many of them set in New Jersey over the last couple of decades, are equally punchy and pretty. [...] One reads these stories with a sense that Hilton has made a rather meticulous study of human relationships, in all their glory and failure. He is an observer of the best kind, and you can feel and taste these intimate worlds, where each gesture, as subtle as it might be, carries seismic import." - Ross Barkan, New York Times contributing columnist and author, most recently, of The Night Burns Bright.

 

 

"[Hilton] reveals his characters with just the right words, and they are devastating. They reveal worlds beneath the first meanings. Hilton is also a playwright, which shows in the masterful way he crafts conversations. But his settings as well are so perfectly delineated that I could vividly imagine each place. The author writes characters fighting against inner and outer demons. Just when all seems bleak, he uses the story to describe the larger world in language that took my breath away and left me close to tears. How does he do it, I asked, and the answer is, with talent that has no limit."    Jadi Campbell, author of The Trail Back Out, winner of the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival.

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"Kamikaze dive straight into the wheels and cogs that make us turn. In a paragraph the teeth of the gears so painstaking laid grab at your mind, folding you in to the seemingly inconsequential moments in time that for better or worse become our defining moments."    J.K. Raymond, author of Infinite Mass.

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"...every story in this collection is enjoyable and thought-provoking. One of the best things about short fiction is that you can read a complete story in one sitting, and each of the stories in this collection is well worth that time."  Bruce Buchanan, author of The Blacksmith's Boy.

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