"The theatrical quality of Rooke's stories, combined with his merciless attention to form, presents the reader with a corrective to plot-driven, stale prose."—Danforth Review "He is the high-priest of maximalist panache, the standard-bearer for a hyper-rhetoric that is at once strange, eccentric, and beautiful."—Douglas Glover "He can break your heart in half all at once, like a kindly assassin, or ... Read morechop it to bits with a dozen swift, sure strokes. He's a writer with a black belt in portraying the small daily tragedies that break bones and leave no visible wounds. It's when he's funny, which he often is, that he's most dangerous."—Russel Banks Show Less