Compassion, Michigan

Advance Praise for Compassion, Michigan

Advance Praise for

COMPASSION, MICHIGAN

“These are stories of extremely real women, mostly disappointed by life, living meagerly in a depleted town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Sound depressing? Not at all. Luczak has tracked their hopes, their repressed desires, and their ambitions with the elegance and precision of one of those silhouette artists who used to snip out perfect likenesses in black paper; people ‘comforted by the familiarity of loneliness,’ as he writes.”

—EDMUND WHITE, author of A Saint in Texas

“Filled with grief and hope, bitterness and tenderness, Raymond’s collection of short stories exudes compassion for its characters and their environs. With a confident eye to detail, and knowledge of the pulse of the place, he brings the reader into the quiet lives the people in the stories appear to be living only to reveal internal tensions around sexuality, belonging, and family. A pleasurable, nuanced portrayal of life in a small town by a talented writer with an understanding of the humanity we all share.”

—CHRIS STARK, author of Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation

“Raymond Luczak’s Compassion, Michigan is a modern-day version of Winesburg, Ohio that proves William Faulkner’s statement that ‘The past is never dead. It is not even over.’ These stories describe a small town over the course of the twentieth century, experiencing change, being haunted by its past. Its residents live their lives of quiet desperation as queer, confused, disempowered or outcast members of their community. They seek love, s*x, purpose, and the freedom to be themselves. In short, they are human, and they have much to teach us.”

—TYLER R. TICHELAAR, Ph.D. and award-winning author of Narrow Lives