The Goat Fish and the Lover's Knot

A new book by Jack Driscoll is a cause for celebration. The Goat Fish and the Lover's Knot reminds me—not that I'd forgotten—exactly why Driscoll has long been one of my favorite American writers. The qualities that have made his work indelible—his deeply intimate relationship with the natural world, the natural lyricism, and palpability of his language, the authentic way in which his always credible narratives earn their mystery—are here in abundance in this beautiful collection.

~Stuart Dybek, Author of the Start of Something: the Selected Stories of Stuart Dybek

You'll savor every word as Driscoll sings the sad, sweet songs of rural America. These songs believe in heartaches and miracles. These miracles look up at the stars and see humanity in the constellations.

~Bonnie Jo Campbell

In this new collection, Jack Driscoll has proven himself again to be one of the finest fiction writers at work these days. His great gift is how uniquely he is able to bestow complexity upon his characters, complete their humanity with just this or that perfect detail, or gesture, or line of dialogue. Combined with the empathy that, as a writer, he shows for all of them, along with his sly eye for foibles and absurdities, reading his fiction feels like living it, and you come away from his pages under his influence, with a deeper vision of your own, feeling understood and better able to understand. There's no sentimentality in The Goat Fish and the Lover's Knot, but Driscoll is able to see through others' eyes in a way few writers can, and his work adds to the world's store of compassion. And, such language! Without ever compromising the power and immediacy and pull of his stories, his sentences often just have to be reread and admired. There's everything in this book that a work of fiction can give us—suspense, and comfort, and conflict, and character, and poetry, and landscape, and sanity, and craziness. It's the kind of book that renews one's belief in the power and importance of books.

~Laura Kasischke

These are tales of family mayhem and magic—of how love survives and how we survive love—each of them told in the rich, wry voice of the real. Jack Driscoll is a local hero to Michigan writers; this book proves him a national treasure.

~Peter Ho Davies

Every sentence written by Jack Driscoll is a miracle—and every story bright with humor and heart and insight. The Goat Fish and the Lover's Knot will hypnotize you with its lyrical beauty.

~Benjamin Percy