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 Coal Black Horse, Stay Here With Me, 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