Brief Instructions

Paul Luikart's stories are shot-glass-sized and simmering with wisdom, rage, and wry humor. They evince a rare quality of attention: He loves life's supporting characters: working men, parolees making new starts, neighborhood watchmen who do little more than watch. He's tuned to moments when characters reveal, through the 'tell' of storytelling, as much about their surprising selves as they do about their subjects. And if he tosses anything so predictably dramatic as a gun into a scene, you can bet he'll trigger something more creative than carnage. It might even be beautiful. — Jeffrey Overstreet, author of Through a Screen Darkly and Auralia's Colors