Kind of Blue

"Skip the latest humdrum bestseller, and instead, do yourself a favor and buy Chris Chamber's gritty, compassionate, and wise story collection, Kind of Blue. I finished it feeling as if the man had left little pieces of his soul on every page, and I swear to God I lost count of the number of sentences I wish I had written." -Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time and The Heavenly Table

"Christopher Chambers is a master of the short story and Kind of Blue is the proof. In this world of dreamers and drunks, loners and longing, the hopeful and the haggard, Chambers accomplishes what only the best writers can; he makes every character feel both universal and unique, each setting both a vacation and a return home. Fans of short fiction need to pay attention. This book is for you." -M.O. Walsh, New York Times bestselling author of My Sunshine Away and The Big Door Prize

"Conjuring the deftness of Denis Johnson and the yowl of Barry Hannah, these stories pulse with the heartbeat of forgotten America. They are lightning in bottles. They are dirt beneath the fingernails. They are broken hearts and open wounds, with just enough gauze to save you. These are stories that have been places and that will take you places. Stories that reawaken slumbering ghosts. They are stories that celebrate the extraordinary nature of our ordinary lives. Sidle up, turn the radio low, and have a listen." -B. J. Hollars, author of Sightings, Midwestern Strange, The Road South, and Dispatches from the Drownings

"These melancholy tales capture the zeitgeist of the 1980s in the blue-collar Midwest, the music, weed, alcohol, tenuous troubled relationships, brushes with crime, and dreams of travel, escape, and solace." -Aurelia Wills, author of Someone I Wanted to Be

"Christopher Chambers' writing is cool, sultry, melancholy, and gorgeously melodic. Chords change. Patterns weave. Syncopated rhythms break rules. A chorus of characters-butchers, corporate hacks, musicians, spurned lovers-balance precariously on sharp edges, take their licks. They're on a quest for freedom, a tonic to mend the damaged soul, a gentle coda of forgiveness."-Christine Maul Rice, author of Swarm Theory

"Kind of Blue is a shot and a beer at your favorite bar with an old friend you haven't seen in a while, but that interval doesn't matter. Very like its brilliant predecessor authored by Miles Davis, this book is a knife blade, a ghost, a missing limb, an ache and a kind of hunger. Read this book, hang out with these people, listen to their problems and poetry, and feel more human." -Robert Lopez, author of Part of the World, Kamby Bolongo Mean River, A Better Class of People, and Dispatches from Puerto Nowhere