Settled amid the seasonal amusements and condominium-lined beaches of the Florida coast, the characters who inhabit Kevin Moffett鈥檚 award-winning stories reach out of their lives to find that something unexpected and mysterious has replaced what used to be familiar.
Some are stalled in the present, alone or lonely, bemused by mortality and disappointment. Some move toward the future heartened by what they learn from those around them鈥攁 tattoo artist, an invented medicine man, zoo animals, strangers, fellow outsiders. Deftly rendered, these stories abound with oddness and grace.
In 鈥淭attooizm,鈥 included in The Best American Short Stories 2006, a young woman struggles with a promise that her boyfriend is determined to make her keep. In the Nelson Algren Award-winning 鈥淪pace,鈥 a reluctantly undertaken errand forces a young man to finally confront the death of his mother. And in 鈥淭he Medicine Man,鈥 hailed by the Times (U.K.) as 鈥減erfectly pitched and perfectly written,鈥 a man recounts his manic attachment to his sister.
Moffett鈥檚 closely observed stories are candid and complex, funny and moving. The world of Permanent Visitors is an idiosyncratic and generous one, its inhabitants searching for constancy in a place crowded with contradiction.
鈥淜evin Moffett is a writer who has the very rare gift of true kindheartedness. Again and again in Permanent Visitors, he surprises and gratifies the reader with the intensity and patience of his gaze鈥攈is ability to find the complicated, the funny, the human, the dazzling, in the stuff of everyday life. The best stories in this book remind us of the real and only purpose of fiction: to recalibrate the heart.鈥濃擥eorge Saunders
鈥淜evin Moffett鈥檚 Permanent Visitors is a terrific book. These short stories are absurd and absolutely real at the same time, and Moffett is simply a wonderful writer. He will make you laugh out loud, and move you deeply, over and over, often in the very same sentence.鈥濃擡lizabeth McCracken, author, The Giant鈥檚 House and Niagara Falls All Over Again
鈥淢r. Moffett writes with a precision when things get somber that suggests old John Fogerty鈥檚 bad moon rising. It鈥檚 the power of true things said truly, and I think this power will grow.鈥濃擯adgett Powell
鈥淵ou could say this book is heartbreaking. Funny. Unpredictable. Intelligent. Yet these words fail to adequately convey the experience of reading Kevin Moffet鈥檚 Permanent Visitors. 鈥楽oul loofah鈥 edges a little closer. If you鈥檝e picked up this collection, wondering, 鈥榳ho is this Moffett guy?鈥欌擨 urge you to buy it and read it, so that you can be one of the lucky people who discovers Kevin Moffett before he鈥檚 more widely outed as the brilliant writer that he is.鈥濃擧eidi Julavits, author, The Effect of Living Backwards
