Reviews
"Each time I opened Fever Dogs I discovered lines and paragraphs and images so glorious, so achingly perfect, that I wanted to read them aloud to everyone nearby. This book is a parade of gifts." --Ramona Ausubel, author of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty and A Guide to Being Born "Wry, funny and quietly devastating, these stories are a pleasure to read even as they twist the heart. Fans of Eileen Myles and Mary Gaitskill will find much to admire here." --Emily Gould, author of Friendship, " Fever Dogs is a stunning collection of stories--each one tightly wound and glimmering with mysterious force. The writing is brilliant. It's very affecting to go back in time and see the throughlines that cross generations and continue to strangle."--Elizabeth McKenzie, author of Stop That Girl: A Novel in Stories and The Portable Veblen: A Novel "A fevered family history found buried in a back yard box, scribbled by some half-mad, most-lucid family remnant none would now dare claim. O'Neil's stories are like none other I've seen, brought out of some place I've never been outside of the dream world I can never fully recall upon waking. Beautiful, chilling, strangely moving work." --Brad Watson, author of Miss Jane: A Novel , "In this fever dream of the family romance, time is malleable and deforms and darkens tales of preceding generations back to the root Mother, a caulbearer, whose bequest of second sight is brilliantly reimagined in Kim O'Neil's percussively composed and compressed stories of successive generations. Destructive impulses and spiky imagery--"edgy breasts...not without ambition," "nipples rowdy with hair," a "concussed lounge chair," a "chub-jointed baby" and much more--recall Sylvia Plath's high burn. Kim O'Neil is on fire in this daring, inventive fiction, her debut, the first match struck." --Christine Schutt, author of Prosperous Friends, "Each time I opened Fever Dogs I discovered lines and paragraphs and images so glorious, so achingly perfect, that I wanted to read them aloud to everyone nearby. This book is a parade of gifts." --Ramona Ausubel, author of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty and A Guide to Being Born "Wry, funny and quietly devastating, these stories are a pleasure to read even as they twist the heart. Fans of Eileen Myles and Mary Gaitskill will find much to admire here." --Emily Gould, author of Friendship, " Fever Dogs is a stunning collection of stories--each one tightly wound and glimmering with mysterious force. The writing is brilliant. It's very affecting to go back in time and see the throughlines that cross generations and continue to strangle."--Elizabeth McKenzie, author of Stop That Girl: A Novel in Stories and The Portable Veblen: A Novel, "Seven interconnected stories plumb the murky depths of a family history in O'Neil's debut collection.... Rooted in the mostly real geography of Massachusetts across the 20th century, O'Neil's stinging stories of unremarkable adulthoods create a resounding, hollow feeling where love and hope could have been." -- Publishers Weekly " Fever Dogs is a stunning collection of stories--each one tightly wound and glimmering with mysterious force. The writing is brilliant. It's very affecting to go back in time and see the throughlines that cross generations and continue to strangle."--Elizabeth McKenzie, author of Stop That Girl: A Novel in Stories and The Portable Veblen: A Novel "A fevered family history found buried in a back yard box, scribbled by some half-mad, most-lucid family remnant none would now dare claim. O'Neil's stories are like none other I've seen, brought out of some place I've never been outside of the dream world I can never fully recall upon waking. Beautiful, chilling, strangely moving work." --Brad Watson, author of Miss Jane: A Novel, "The idea that animates Fever Dogs ?--?that the past is not really past and is always with us, etc.,--?is a familiar one, but O'Neil's way of dealing with it makes it new again. By telling the story of a family in endlessly recursive vignettes, she makes the stakes of both the present day stories and the historical ones personal and familiar: it becomes clear that the same kinds of ghosts haunt all families. Universal and deeply specific, strange and familiar, Fever Dogs is the rare kind of collection that has the sustained intensity and connectedness of the best novels. And with it, Kim O'Neil announces herself as a writer of near-supernatural power." -- Electric Literature, "In this fever dream of the family romance, time is malleable and deforms and darkens tales of preceding generations back to the root Mother, a caulbearer, whose bequest of second sight is brilliantly reimagined in Kim O'Neil's percussively composed and compressed stories of successive generations. Destructive impulses and spiky imagery--"edgy breasts...not without ambition," "nipples rowdy with hair," a "concussed lounge chair," a "chub-jointed baby" and much more--recall Sylvia Plath's high burn. Kim O'Neil is on fire in this daring, inventive fiction, her debut, the first match struck." --Christine Schutt, author of Prosperous Friends , "Seven interconnected stories plumb the murky depths of a family history in O'Neil's debut collection.... Rooted in the mostly real geography of Massachusetts across the 20th century, O'Neil's stinging stories of unremarkable adulthoods create a resounding, hollow feeling where love and hope could have been." -- Publishers Weekly "In this fever dream of the family romance, time is malleable and deforms and darkens tales of preceding generations back to the root Mother, a caulbearer, whose bequest of second sight is brilliantly reimagined in Kim O'Neil's percussively composed and compressed stories of successive generations. Kim O'Neil is on fire in this daring, inventive fiction, her debut, the first match struck." --Christine Schutt, author of of Prosperous Friends " Fever Dogs is a stunning collection of stories--each one tightly wound and glimmering with mysterious force. The writing is brilliant. It's very affecting to go back in time and see the throughlines that cross generations and continue to strangle."--Elizabeth McKenzie, author of Stop That Girl: A Novel in Stories and The Portable Veblen: A Novel "A fevered family history found buried in a back yard box, scribbled by some half-mad, most-lucid family remnant none would now dare claim. O'Neil's stories are like none other I've seen, brought out of some place I've never been outside of the dream world I can never fully recall upon waking. Beautiful, chilling, strangely moving work." --Brad Watson, author of Miss Jane: A Novel, "Seven interconnected stories plumb the murky depths of a family history in O'Neil's debut collection.... Rooted in the mostly real geography of Massachusetts across the 20th century, O'Neil's stinging stories of unremarkable adulthoods create a resounding, hollow feeling where love and hope could have been." -- Publishers Weekly " Fever Dogs is a stunning collection of stories--each one tightly wound and glimmering with mysterious force. The writing is brilliant. It's very affecting to go back in time and see the throughlines that cross generations and continue to strangle."--Elizabeth McKenzie, author of Stop That Girl: A Novel in Stories and The Portable Veblen: A Novel "A fevered family history found buried in a back yard box, scribbled by some half-mad, most-lucid family remnant none would now dare claim. O'Neil's stories are like none other I've seen, brought out of some place I've never been outside of the dream world I can never fully recall upon waking. Beautiful, chilling, strangely moving work." --Brad Watson, author of Miss Jane: A Novel , "The idea that animates Fever Dogs --that the past is not really past and is always with us, etc.,--is a familiar one, but O'Neil's way of dealing with it makes it new again. By telling the story of a family in endlessly recursive vignettes, she makes the stakes of both the present day stories and the historical ones personal and familiar: it becomes clear that the same kinds of ghosts haunt all families. Universal and deeply specific, strange and familiar, Fever Dogs is the rare kind of collection that has the sustained intensity and connectedness of the best novels. And with it, Kim O'Neil announces herself as a writer of near-supernatural power." -- Electric Literature
