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Named one of Variety’s “10 Storytellers To Watch,” Matthew Baker is the author of the story collections Why Visit America and Hybrid Creatures and the children’s novel Key Of X, originally published as If You Find This. Digital experiments include the temporal fiction “Ephemeral,” the interlinked novel Untold, the randomized novel Verses, and the intentionally posthumous Afterthought, along with the cyber zine Code Lit.
Praise for Matthew Baker and Why Visit America Satirical and comedic... The premises of the stories in Why Visit America are increasingly inventive and clever, often featuring some sort of reversal to our current social order, offering up allegorical commentary on who we are as Americans. The New York Times Baker never takes the easy way out. He doesn't brandish sharp swords at American capitalism or consumer excess or fears that masquerade as politics. Neither does he construct straw men, then ask the reader to applaud when he lights them on fire. The Washington Post Imaginative. . . .Satirical and deeply humane, these poignant stories expose the moral bankruptcy at the rotten core of the American social contract. Esquire Inventive. . . . Baker pairs his propensity for play with broad societal critiques. . . . In the vein of a writer like Donald Barthelme, Baker is both witty and big-hearted. The A.V. Club Baker has a sharp eye for Americana, both faded and glossy. . . .Quickly moving from the naturalist to the surreal, the erotic, and the experimental, the diversity of styles, locales, and characters in this collection is a testament to Baker's range. . . In form and concept, these stories recall those by the great fabulists Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, and Shirley Jackson. Guernica Striking... In Baker's stories we see an aspirational America: a country wrought with anger and longing and fear and hate but also one where you can't let go of the feeling that we are hurtling toward some greater reconciliation... Baker's writing is beyond satisfying. The Rumpus This book is a collection of thirteen short stories that span the width and breadth of America, tackling its despairs, its hopes, its triumphs, and its failures with an eloquence and insight that frankly should be illegal for how good it is. Lightspeed Magazine The genre is 'literary fiction', the overriding theme funhouse-mirror visions of the titular country's quirks and obsessions. . . .This is a first-rate writer. Nightmare Magazine Bold, captivating, and deeply relevant, Baker's imaginative stories offer approachable, optimistic perspectives on morally ambiguous topics facing Americans, including what it means to be one nation. Booklist, starred review The mundane details of everyday life are tweaked in subtle but surprising, fantastical ways. . . This is a smart, imaginative, and thoughtful collection. Publishers Weekly
