You Want More

These stories have absurdist energy, wit, and inventiveness to burn, but antic comedy is their mode and metier, not their sole aim or reason for being. Singleton's work doesn't wear literariness on its sleeve; even when he channels canonical writers, as in John Cheever, Rest in Peace, he does so in a way that's literal and can seem almost anti-literary-making the grandly metaphorical, life-spanning The Swimmer into a story in which a man suffers a heart attack on his riding mower and then, dead, cuts a gently arcing swath across his town before crashing into a silo. But these stories are often sneakily ambitious, sneakily moving. Singleton has Charles Portis' gift for writing a satire both ruthless and lined always with affection, and like that Southern icon, he's a master of and evangelist for the joys and idiosyncrasies of speech, especially the loquacious talk of barrooms and Little League fields and scrapbooking shops. For the uninitiated, a wonderful introduction to a Southern original. Kirkus Reviews, Starred A greatest-hits album from a writer whose stories are like epic spitballs from the back of the class: high-arcing and unbearably funny protests against the absurdities of everyday life. Jonathan Miles, Garden & Gun In his brilliant mix of comedy and tragedy and deep tenderness for the most minor characters among us, George Singleton is nothing less than the Shakespeare of South Carolina. Margaret Renkl, author of Late Migrations George Singleton is one of the funniest writers in America. He's also the writer most attuned to the American freakshow its hilarity, its hopes, its heartbreak. His fiction has mattered, a lot, for as long as he's been writing it, but it's never mattered more than now. You Want More is a major book from a major writer. Brock Clarke, author of Who Are You, Calvin Bledsoe? People always ask what the one book you'd take to a deserted island. For me, it might be this one. David Joy, author of When These Mountains Burn Over his career, George Singleton has written unruly characters living unruly lives. His depictions of the American South in particular the everyday tumult of white blue-collar men and women struggling to come to terms with this strange and chaotic world are both tragic and comic, heartbreaking, surreal, and when least expected weirdly ebullient. Singleton is a brilliant storyteller; his vision is crystal clear and wonderfully warped. Julianna Baggott, author of Burn Singleton's South doesn't look like anybody else's. -The Atlanta-Journal Constitution A disturbingly askew vision of the South. Entertainment Weekly George Singleton is a madman. He's also one of the most talented writers the South has turned out in decades. -The Charleston Post and Courier