Jess Walter

"Captivating ... devastationg ... funny because it's true, and horrible because it's true, and funny because it's horrible, and so on, forever. Fortunately, Walter is a bighearted man who excels at writing about other bighearted, if broken, men. That generosity of spirit, coupled with Walter's seeming inability to look away from the messy bits, elevates these stories from dirges to symphonies. For Walter, we do live in water, an immense soup of muddled humanity sloshing around and spilling over, soaking us all." Allison Glock, New York Times Book Review

"Stories that twist and plumb, delivering unexpected laughs while playing with what it is we think we know ... Walter has emerged as one of the country’s most dazzling novelists ... so freakishly, fiendishly good, it isn’t fair." -- Ken Armstrong, Seattle Times

"A slender, clean, and beautiful collection ... Walter allows his characters, particularly in the way they speak (and the street dialect they employ), to show us, rather than tell us, about them." -- Noah Charney, Bookslut

"Walter's got a great ear and a genius for sympathy with America's new dispossessed." -- Alan Cheuse, NPR's All Things Considered

"Terrifically crafted, sometimes funny, and often heartrendingly grim ..." -- Ethan Gilsdorf, Boston Globe

"A bad-ass collection ... gritty, big-hearted." Ben Percy, Esquire

"Jess Walter is as talented a natural storyteller as is working in American fiction these days ... the admirably intentioned to the downright brilliant ... these stories have both zip and heart, muscle and soul." Michael Lindgren, Washington Post

"The economy of dialogue, the snap, the reserves the characters summon in hopes of making a go of it yet, bespeak a serious generosity on the part of the author. Walter loves these guys, and it shows ... The standout story is the title piece, whose sadness and brutality and slow march toward quiet disaster had me in physical terror." -- Nancy Rommelman, The Oregonian

"Walter is a kind of William Kennedy of the Northwest, training his eye on the forlorn locales and hard-luck losers rolled over by the American economy on its way down ... Black humor is what we expect from Jess Walter. What is different is that the stories give us a sense of the writer's heart we haven't gotten from the parade of bright novels." -- Marion Winik, Newsday

"Darkly funny, sneakily sad, these stories are very, very good. You know the way Web sites recommend books by saying if you liked this, you’ll like that? The algorithm for this debut collection is straightforward: if you like to read, you’ll like this book. " - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"With a signature blend of wicked humor and heartbreaking tenderness, Walter’s intense stories speak directly to the contemporary American experience... Wildly entertaining and thought-provoking fiction from a prodigiously talented writer." - Booklist (starred review)

"Straightforward and funny ... A witty and sobering snapshot of recession-era America." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Mr. Walter brings (his) outlook to short-story writing easily, and with a vengeance ... his most bleakly funny, hard-edge book in years." - Janet Maslin, New York Times

"Each word is perfectly placed ... Walter’s semiserious ode, “Statistical Abstract for my Hometown of Spokane, Washington” ... brings his first story collection to a smashing end." - Jane Ciabattari, Daily Beast

"Brims with humanity. A-" Entertainment Weekly

"Gritty, pitch perfect ... wrings enlightenment from dark realities." -- People

"Funny, insightful and thought-provoking." -- Carolyn Lamberson, The Spokesman-Review

"A great collection, in fact, and an important contribution to the literature of our region." -- Alison Hallett, Portland Mercury

"Walter nails the characters, nails the individual downward spirals and nails these uncertain and often unkind post-modern times ... trenchant and true observations of a society that is not taking care of its own." -- Barbara Lloyd McMichaels, Bellingham Herald

"Vintage Walter ... Quirky. And Fun. Buy." -- USA Today

"Though he offers flashes of humor, he seems most at ease and in command when he's working in a naturalistic, contemporary setting, one that he can describe with effectively spare prose, and in an empathetic yet unsparing voice." Adam Langer, San Francisco Chronicle

"Dark, comedic ... The stories in We Live In Water aren’t cautionary tales so much as satire on the pure, sorry foolishness of humankind — how clueless yet hopeful we can be, even when we’re at fault." Connie Ogle, Miami Herald

"Along with Richard Ford, he has perhaps the sharpest eye in American fiction for the messiness, and craziness, of contemporary life ... These stories, crafted, as always, in his swift, elegant, urgent prose, make Walter worthy to stand with the best around." Rory Runnells, Winnipeg Free Press

*Esquire's Best book of 2012
*NPR-Fresh Air best Novel of 2012
*Audible and Salon best audio book of 2012
*New York Times Notable Book of the Year
*Washington Post Notable Book of the Year
*Best books of the year: Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, San Francisco Chronicle, Miami Herald, Seattle Times, The Oregonian, St. Louis Today, Kansas City Star, Goodreads, Hudsons, Barnes and Noble, Amazon

"A literary miracle."--NPR's Fresh Air
"A high-wire feat of bravura storytelling."--NYT Book Review
"A masterpiece ... damn near perfect."--Salon

APRIL 13 -- SPOKANE -- Get Lit w/​Shawn Vestal and Sam Ligon

APRIL 17 -- SEATTLE -- Third Place Books

APRIL 18 -- ORINDA -- Orinda Books 2 p.m.

APRIL 18 -- SAN FRANCISCO -- Mrs. Dalloway's

APRIL 19 -- SANTA CRUZ -- Bookshop

APRIL 20-21 -- LOS ANGELES -- L.A. Times Festival

APRIL 22 -- SAN DIEGO -- Rancho Santa Fe Library Guild Luncheon, noon

APRILY 22 -- SAN DIEGO -- Warwick's Books, 7:30 p.m.

MAY 5 -- CHICAGO -- Wilmette One Book, Wilmette Library 2 p.m.

MAY 6 -- MILWAUKEE - Boswell's Bookstore

MAY 7 -- MINNEAPOLIS - Magers and Quinn, 7:30 p.m.

MAY 8 -- NASHVILLE - Parnassus Bookstore

JUNE 12 -- SEATTLE - Town Hall with Sherman Alexie, Jonathan Evison

JUNE 14-15 -- SEATTLE, Book-It Production, Financial Lives of the Poets

JULY 14-21 -- PORTLAND, Tin House Writer's Workshop

OCTOBER 4 -- STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, CO., Literary Sojourn

OCTOBER 7 -- UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE KNOXVILLE, with Warren Frazier

OCTOBER 20 -- SPOKANE, Library Fundraiser

OCTOBER 26 -- SAN FRANCISCO, National Kidney Foundation Fundraiser

FEBRUARY -- University of Montana - Visiting Writer