ABOUT LAST CALL
ADVANCE PRAISE
“Last Call is the most deserving
collection I have read in a long, long time and I am silenced for how splendid
and days later my heart still aches from reading these powerful stories about the
contrary lives of the beings we call human.”
--Robert Olmstead, author of Far
Bright Star, Coal
Black Horse, and River
Dogs
“In a stripped-down, elegant prose,
Blair Oliver’s Last Call explores the disconnect between who we are, and
who we believe we are; whether success or failure, child or parent, it is a
process of discovery that uncovers the essential bits and pieces of what it
means, finally, to be human. Told with a wry and lively wit, these stories
range wide and hit hard. It’s the rarest kind of treat—a collection
you’ll want to read and re-read.”
--Claire Davis, author of Winter
Range, Season of the Snake, and Labors of the Heart
“Last Call studies fathers,
wives, husbands, and a geography that ranges from the Rocky Mountains to the
pine barrens of coastal New Jersey. This is a collection of stories that
hunts down the subject of marriage like a wary prey, circling it, repeating
patterns with variations, observing both from a distance and up close.
Blair Oliver captures the moments we fall out of love and its root causes in
these beautiful and lean short stories.”
--Brian Kiteley, author of Still Life
with Insects, I Know Many Songs, But I Cannot Sing, and The 3 A.M.
Epiphany
REVIEWS
"Like all good fiction,
whether it is movies, books, or music, Last Call releases the reader
back into his or her life with a new interpretive frame to see the world
through, and when faced with a similar situation, readers will have the feeling
that someone else has been through it as well."
--Scene Magazine (Click Here to Read the Complete Review)
"Differentiated from
the usual crowd of commentary writers...is [this] truly exploratory
voice....Blair Oliver manifests excellent style and complex themes in his new
book Last Call."
--The Rocky Mountain Collegian (Click
Here to Read the Complete Review)
"Let me start with a
confession: I am not at all a fan of short stories. I have tried over and
over to be open to this genre but I can count on one hand the number of times
that I have actually been able to finish a collection of short stories.
Blair Oliver has restored my rapidly dwindling faith in the possibility of ever
finding a short story collection I actually enjoy....I am honestly stunned by
this collection and the stories in Last Call will stay with me for a
long time to come."
--Reader Views (Click Here to Read the Complete Review)
"[Blair Oliver's]
characters are complex, approachable and drawn with sympathy despite their
lying, cheating and family struggles. Oliver is a fresh, powerful voice
in contemporary short stories."
--Dickinson Magazine
"[Blair Oliver's]
descriptive text treats us to insightful stories that could be about any of
us....You can count on Oliver's stories of love lost, love renewed, husbands,
wives, etc., to stay with you."
--The Coloradoan
"In the New West of
McCarthy and McGuane, old sheriffs and ranch hands
look at the present with barely veiled disdain. In Last Call,
contemporary fathers look to the future, hoping the sins of their past haven’t
already damned their children. New West fiction makes an icon of the past while
Oliver considers what’s to come; perhaps he’s the Next West."
--High
Country News (Click Here to Read the Complete Review)
"An unfamiliar humor
runs through [Last Call].... But this is comedy without a laugh
track or a signaled release, and it all adds up to a wry, literate read."
--5280
“The
reader felt right at home with all the characters in these stories. I could
imagine being in their house or their relationship from the way Oliver
described every nook and cranny. What I liked best about Last Call is that it made me re-think my priorities.”
--Reader Views