OCTOBER 2019 - AudioFile
Kirby Heyborne and Johanna Parker alternate narrating these stories about the emotional and sometimes difficult relationship between parents and their children. It’s a curious and sometimes comical collection, and both narrators skillfully take on the challenge of performing the variety of characters. Heyborne handles both the humor and gravitas with care and confidence. Parker masterfully brings characters to life. The variations on family relationships include a woman who is having difficulty visiting her aging mother, a man who needs his father’s help to fix his house, and a couple who are trying to take care of their nieces and nephews. Some of the stories are sweet, and some are quite bizarre. A.G.M. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
06/11/2018
In the world of Wilson’s darkly funny short stories, children and deer die, and unhappy, helpless people drink and do irresponsible things. Wilson (Perfect Little World) shows people managing as best they can: trying to survive video game zombies when the rest of their life is too horrible to fix (“Scroll Through the Weapons”), helping selfish grown children because no one else would love them enough to do so (“Housewarming” and the title story), and coping with the horror of adolescence by making horror movies (“The Horror We Made”). “No Joke, This Is Going to Be Painful” involves pariahs ice fighting, but its title would work for virtually every story in the collection. The exception is the one weak link, “The Lost Baby,” which taps into a pain so deep that neither humor nor the human ability to occasionally not be awful can redeem anything. The rest stick with the reader and show a terrible world made less so, sometimes, by human contact, even though humans were usually the problem in the first place. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
Hands down my favorite book of the year.” — Ann Patchett
“There’s a lot of Salinger in Wilson’s writing — the wit, the vulnerability and the cosmic sadness. And, these new stories of Wilson’s are something else; they’re funny, raw and beautiful and, for sure, they killed me.” — Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air
“The versatile Wilson inspires tears and laughter, and crafts memorable phrases that may unexpectedly pop up in the reader’s mind weeks later.” — Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“A welcome event, seeing as how Wilson is a master of the form. . . . Within each story, Wilson shows his sharp wit and expansive empathy for the weirdest corners of the human condition.” — Nylon Magazine
“Saying it’s as good as Tunneling to the Center of the Earth doesn’t do it justice. . . . Wilson never moralizes, much less sensationalizes, any predicament he sketches; rather he makes us feel and wonder at the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” — Booklist (starred review)
“Wilson triumphantly returns to short stories. . . . Evocative, compassionate, and exquisitely composed stories about the human condition.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Darkly funny. . . . [The stories] stick with the reader and show a terrible world made less so, sometimes, by human contact, even though humans were usually the problem in the first place.” — Publishers Weekly
PRAISE FOR PERFECT LITTLE WORLD: — //
“A novel you keep reading for old-fashioned reasons—because it’s a good story and you need to know what happens. But you also keep reading because you want to know what a good family is. Everyone wants to know that.” — John Irving, The New York Times Book Review
“Wild. . . . Wilson neatly dissects the meaning of ‘family values’ in this provocative read.” — People
“The sheer energy of imagination in Wilson’s work makes other writers of realistic fiction look lazy.” — Newsday
“[A] rich tapestry of relationships that bind in unexpected ways. . . . Wilson’s deliciously breezy style reels you in and holds you tight.” — Denver Post
“Persistently compassionate. . . . Wilson’s best moments are funny and earnest. . . . [His] crisp language and smart plotting make Perfect Little World immensely likable and absolutely enjoyable.” — GQ
“Charming. . . . Wilson pulls off his sweet-and-tart tone. . . . The novel delights in the project’s Willy Wonkaesque sense of antic chaos.” — Washington Post
“Quirky. . . . Wilson’s Perfect Little World finds its bliss in the vast disconnect between people’s best intentions and where they land.” — Entertainment Weekly
Nylon Magazine
A welcome event, seeing as how Wilson is a master of the form. . . . Within each story, Wilson shows his sharp wit and expansive empathy for the weirdest corners of the human condition.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The versatile Wilson inspires tears and laughter, and crafts memorable phrases that may unexpectedly pop up in the reader’s mind weeks later.
Ann Patchett
Hands down my favorite book of the year.
People
Wild. . . . Wilson neatly dissects the meaning of ‘family values’ in this provocative read.
GQ
Persistently compassionate. . . . Wilson’s best moments are funny and earnest. . . . [His] crisp language and smart plotting make Perfect Little World immensely likable and absolutely enjoyable.
Booklist (starred review)
Saying it’s as good as Tunneling to the Center of the Earth doesn’t do it justice. . . . Wilson never moralizes, much less sensationalizes, any predicament he sketches; rather he makes us feel and wonder at the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Newsday
The sheer energy of imagination in Wilson’s work makes other writers of realistic fiction look lazy.
Denver Post
[A] rich tapestry of relationships that bind in unexpected ways. . . . Wilson’s deliciously breezy style reels you in and holds you tight.
Entertainment Weekly
Quirky. . . . Wilson’s Perfect Little World finds its bliss in the vast disconnect between people’s best intentions and where they land.
Washington Post
Charming. . . . Wilson pulls off his sweet-and-tart tone. . . . The novel delights in the project’s Willy Wonkaesque sense of antic chaos.
//
PRAISE FOR PERFECT LITTLE WORLD:
Maureen Corrigan
There’s a lot of Salinger in Wilson’s writing — the wit, the vulnerability and the cosmic sadness. And, these new stories of Wilson’s are something else; they’re funny, raw and beautiful and, for sure, they killed me.
Nylon Magazine
A welcome event, seeing as how Wilson is a master of the form. . . . Within each story, Wilson shows his sharp wit and expansive empathy for the weirdest corners of the human condition.
Booklist (starred review)
Saying it’s as good as Tunneling to the Center of the Earth doesn’t do it justice. . . . Wilson never moralizes, much less sensationalizes, any predicament he sketches; rather he makes us feel and wonder at the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The versatile Wilson inspires tears and laughter, and crafts memorable phrases that may unexpectedly pop up in the reader’s mind weeks later.
Ann Patchett
Hands down my favorite book of the year.
Washington Post
Charming. . . . Wilson pulls off his sweet-and-tart tone. . . . The novel delights in the project’s Willy Wonkaesque sense of antic chaos.
GQ
Persistently compassionate. . . . Wilson’s best moments are funny and earnest. . . . [His] crisp language and smart plotting make Perfect Little World immensely likable and absolutely enjoyable.
Denver Post
[A] rich tapestry of relationships that bind in unexpected ways. . . . Wilson’s deliciously breezy style reels you in and holds you tight.
People
Wild. . . . Wilson neatly dissects the meaning of ‘family values’ in this provocative read.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The versatile Wilson inspires tears and laughter, and crafts memorable phrases that may unexpectedly pop up in the reader’s mind weeks later.
Washington Post
Charming. . . . Wilson pulls off his sweet-and-tart tone. . . . The novel delights in the project’s Willy Wonkaesque sense of antic chaos.
John Irving
A novel you keep reading for old-fashioned reasons—because it’s a good story and you need to know what happens. But you also keep reading because you want to know what a good family is. Everyone wants to know that.
Entertainment Weekly
Quirky. . . . Wilson’s Perfect Little World finds its bliss in the vast disconnect between people’s best intentions and where they land.
Newsday
The sheer energy of imagination in Wilson’s work makes other writers of realistic fiction look lazy.
OCTOBER 2019 - AudioFile
Kirby Heyborne and Johanna Parker alternate narrating these stories about the emotional and sometimes difficult relationship between parents and their children. It’s a curious and sometimes comical collection, and both narrators skillfully take on the challenge of performing the variety of characters. Heyborne handles both the humor and gravitas with care and confidence. Parker masterfully brings characters to life. The variations on family relationships include a woman who is having difficulty visiting her aging mother, a man who needs his father’s help to fix his house, and a couple who are trying to take care of their nieces and nephews. Some of the stories are sweet, and some are quite bizarre. A.G.M. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2018-05-15
Ten familial short fictions from the fertile mind of Wilson (Perfect Little World, 2017, etc.).Wilson triumphantly returns to short stories, the medium of his first book, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (2009), ruminating once more on grief, adolescence, and what it means to be a family. The opener, "Scrolling Through the Weapons," finds a guy and his girlfriend looking after some nearly feral nieces and nephews. The tricky bond between father and son is revisited in the stark "Housewarming." A wife and mother who returns to her childhood home after her 82-year-old mother is assaulted makes a plethora of bad decisions in "A Visit." Grief and regret run hand in hand in "Sanders for a Night," in which a boy wants to cosplay as his dead brother, and the title story, in which a failing rock star takes advantage of his mother's generous nature. There's a rare misfire in the collection-ending "The Lost Baby," which plays out as advertised, including a puzzling, ambiguous ending. But the book's three portraits of young people are mesmerizing. In the collection's best story, "Wildfire Johnny," Wilson counterintuitively explores the nature of male maturity, cloaked in a horror story about a mystical razor that allows the user to travel back in time—if they slash their own throat. In "No Joke, This Is Going to Be Painful," a restless young woman stuck in her small town finds redemption in pain: "We called them ice fights. They made things weird for a little while." Finally, Wilson captures the insanity of adolescence in "The Horror We Made," in which a bunch of teenage girls jacked up on Adderall, weed, and diet pills make a horror movie during a sleepover. One true confession within: "Every time I think I might not be friends with you guys anymore…I remember that I love shit like this and no one else would do it with me."Evocative, compassionate, and exquisitely composed stories about the human condition.
