Once Removed is that rare book that succeeds on both micro and macro levels; the stories focus on the specific intimacy of individual lives yet also participate in the larger project of a whole world made of these stories--dependent on them, in fact, supported and enlarged and sustained by them. Sartor's women suffer the internal and external scarring of the dangerous terrain they navigate: love, family, self, community. They ask uncomfortable questions, both of themselves and of the reader; it's hugely satisfying to reach the end of the book and feel the resonant strength of the answers it proposes.--Antonya Nelson "author of Bound"
Colette Sartor's stories shimmer with a radiant, unsettling light. She strips away the veils that we hide behind and exposes our deepest fears and desires, revealing who we inescapably are. The stories are laced with dark humor and raw, earned emotion, and they proceed from page to page with a beautiful urgency. Her prose sings and her wounded characters linger in readers' memories like people you've known, people you could have been had luck gone the other way. This is trenchant, gorgeous fiction, the voice of a writer you'll follow anywhere, everywhere.--Bret Anthony Johnston "author of Remember Me Like This"
Lordy, what a wallop each of these stories delivers--to the heart and the head, sure, but also to the conscience and the soul, not to mention to the myths of family that we embrace and to the vital lies peculiar to love that we cleave to. Equally stunning is Ms. Sartor's command of craft--no cleverness for its own sake, no peekaboo, no 'Look, Ma, no hands.' Instead, with enviable humility and no little grace, she has subordinated herself to the needs, wishes, desires, and dreams of characters who have galvanized her imagination and engaged her empathy. Bravo.--Lee K. Abbott "author of All Things, All at Once: New and Selected Stories"
These are short stories the way they were meant to be told, from a writer who, tale after tale, proves her mastery of the form. Peopled with characters who are bracingly complex, these stories tease out the subtleties of human relationships, especially when they've gone awry. I was absorbed and moved from every first sentence to the last.--Cristina Henríquez "author of The Book of Unknown Americans"