Fire Road

“Donald Anderson dares strong emotion and straight talk. His book is populated by memorable characters to whom he is unswervingly loyal in both their cruelty and their generosity. He compels us to look directly into madness and into the grievous public world of our time, as well as into happy individual enchantments. The title story is unforgettable.”—Frederick Busch

“Donald Anderson's mastery rides a knife-edge, just managing to give us keen, fruitful glimpses of old feet, Jewish slaughterers, a French word, an Air Force general. The tragic is petite here, brilliantly lapidary, and one story, ‘Luck,’ is Beckettian. A serious artist with an eerie, mesmeric hinterland, like a dead parent's voice left forever on the answering machine.”—Paul West, author of The Tent of Orange Mist

“Unlike other writers, whose work comes largely from the imagination, Anderson gives us stories that feel as though they have been lived, as though they have been earned. His stories are full of loss, and love affairs, and disappointment …Anderson can be tough and he can be moving. The best of his prose is fine and lyrical…I can liken reading Anderson to reading Joyce: the work can make me feel inadequate as a reader, aware that I ought to read it all again. And I will.”—Barry Kitterman, West Branch