"Felver’s writing is sharp and insightful. His stories evoke the style and themes of writers ranging from Richard Russo to Rick Bass to Andre Dubus III and, in the particularly brutal surrealist title story, “The Dogs of Detroit,” Cormac McCarthy. A substantial debut by a promising and confident new writer."
“Felver can be inventive with tone, diction and perspective — and heartbreakingly solemn when he wants to be. Both “The Era of Good Feelings,” in which a high-school history teacher, burying his father, appraises his personal past, and “Hide-and-Seek,” in which estranged brothers collide at an airport bar, coolly dissect woe amid death and regret.”
-Mike Peed, The New York Times
“Creepy stories that don't make for light reading but definitely get under your skin; beautiful stories with good, old-fashioned virtues…surreal, disturbing, and decidedly original; important for serious literature collections.”
-Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
*Named one of the Best Books of 2018 by Library Journal
“This book brims with memorable characters at odds with their environments and life situations.”
-John Freeman, Michigan Public Radio
“Felver lays his words down in these stories in such a precise way that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to pull yourself away from a story once you’ve started.”
-Cameron Barnett, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“{Felver} delivers what good fiction can: amplified truth — in this case, vividly imagined and rendered worst-case scenarios that reflect our current world in a very dark mirror.”
-Ellen Prentiss Campbell, Washington Independent Review of Books
*Named one of their 50 Favorite Books of 2018 by Washington Independent Review of Books
“Felver delivers these 14 stories…with writing that is both sharp and hypnotic so that even when you want to turn away, to look away, you can’t.”
-Elan Barnehama, New York Journal of Books
“This is a grim, unsettling read, populated with hard-edged figures who have very little left to lose. The prose is succinct yet variegated with shrewd insights—a savvy reflection of the characters’ worldviews. This is a captivating collection, one that I suspect I’ll spend another few nights flying through in the near future.”
-Jeremy Griffin, Colorado Review
“These are all very elemental relationships in Felver’s fiction, so raw you can see the blood. It’s why the characters are so intent on developing calluses.”
-Charles Rammelkamp, Misfit Magazine
“With The Dogs of Detroit, Brad Felver announces himself as the twenty-first century Midwestern heir apparent of Cormac McCarthy—a writer unafraid to expose the flawed, elegiac themes that haunt the flyover states like some Flannery O’Connor of the heartland.”
-Michael A. Ferro, Heavy Feather Review
“Felver maintains a level of intensity somehow, across all those pages and years. These characters are so indelible, you root for them, cry with them, and generally feel like they’re real people you know, have known your whole life, by the end of the story.”
-Michael Czyzniejewski, Story366
“With consummate skill and assurance, Brad Felver writes of overlooked people suffering physical and emotional deprivation, who struggle, now and again with success, in thwarted lives."
-Lynne Sharon Schwartz, author of Leaving Brooklyn
"These stories contain the powerful voices of the hungry and the grieving and the lost of America and each of them will leave an indelible mark."
-Hannah Tinti, author of The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley
"Brad Felver is a master of voice and creating unforgettable characters, and the stories in The Dogs of Detroit are knockouts...No one writes like Brad Felver, and The Dogs of Detroit is a remarkable collection."
-Anne Valente, author of Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down
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