"Meissner's stories are expressions of the complex connections between ourselves and parents. They say what we all should say but usually can't. In that way they serve literature's best purpose." —Richard Ford "A storyteller with remarkable gifts." —Kurt Vonnegut "Meissner has the storyteller's gift for creating living characters, living speech, living emotions, living drama. He knows his small towns, but beyond that, he knows the workings of the human heart." —Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried and July, July “It’s not easy to write believable small-town eccentrics, to steer clear of framing them as one-note. Meissner . . . avoids this trap. The Road to Cosmos recalls Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio . . . but the people of Cosmos are not as darkly troubled as their predecessors. Meissner shades his work with a lighter palette. . . . The stories are thick with atmosphere. Reading them, it’s clear that Meissner, who has also published four books of poetry, is doing what poets do so well—using fewer words, better words, to tell a whole and vivid tale.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review "Anyone who grew up in 50s and 60s will be able to identify their high school, girlfriend, parents and town characters in the pages of this ... collection. Meissner's words dance across the tapestry of small town life, stomping with teen angst, tearing across the pages of demolition derby dreams and pirouetting mid-story with unexpected turns. . . . Meissner has stories to tell and the literary dexterity to tell them through well-crafted characters who could, for all intents and purposes, be living right next door to you or me." —New American Reader