"The Commission of Inquiry traverses time and space and even species to plumb the depths of human failings and longings. These stories take us to Reagan-era America, Civil War Gettysburg, the French Colonial Congo, and an array of present-day settings. We meet a homesick chimp caught up in the space race, a grieving former child star, a nineties' suburban teenager courting friends through theft and music, a marine biologist rethinking her life. Through it all, Patrick Nevins moors his impressive range of subjects with profound insights into who we are."

-Jennifer Wortman, author of This. This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love.

"Wonderful and bracing doesn't begin to describe this collection, and I read these stories with the enthusiasm of a kid given a View-Master for the first time. Nevins' range is incredible, and as one moves through these stories the feeling of what is possible opens up for the reader even as, for the characters, things may be-and often are-closing down. Enos the chimp has my heart."

-Ethan Rutherford, author of Farthest South: Stories

"The memorable characters populating Patrick Nevins' The Commission of Inquiry make lousy choices. Liars, cheaters, thieves, they drink and drug and masquerade-as if their actions might somehow outrun their loneliness. But at the core, they are dreamers, every last one of them, trapped by their circumstances, by the strictures of society, by their own damn selves, staring down dreams deferred. 'Would they be stuck in the dim hallway forever?' Nevins refuses pat, easy answers. 'But I want to know what they're saying.' Readers of this wide-ranging, far-reaching collection will keep turning pages, spurred on by that wanting, too."

-Sara Lippmann, author of Lech and Jerks