WE LIVE IN WATER is a darkly comic, heartfelt collection of stories from a "ridiculously talented writer" (NEW YORK TIMES). These twelve stories-published over the last five years in HARPER'S, MCSWEENEY'S, PLAYBOY and other publications-veer from comic tales of love to social satire to suspenseful crime fiction, from hip Portland to once-hip Seattle to never-hip Spokane, from a condemned casino in Las Vegas to a bottomless lake in the dark woods of Idaho. This is a world of lost fathers and redemptive conmen, of meth tweakers on desperate odysseys and men committing suicide by fishing.
In "Thief," an aluminum worker turns unlikely detective to solve the mystery of which of his kids is stealing from the family vacation fund. In "We Live in Water," a lawyer returns to a corrupt North Idaho town to find the father who disappeared thirty years earlier. In "Anything Helps," a homeless man has to "go to cardboard" to raise enough money to buy his son the new Harry Potter book. In "Virgo," a local newspaper editor tries to get back at his superstitious ex-girlfriend by screwing with her horoscope. In the near-future dystopia of "Don't Eat Cat," a Seattle man ventures into Freemont's zombie-town to look for his drug-addicted girlfriend. In "Wheelbarrow Kings," two tweakers high on meth take on the Sisyphean task of pushing a giant television to a pawn shop.
Industry Reviews
"...gritty, pitch-perfect collection...Walter wrings enlightenment from dark realities."--People
"[Walter] can mine the least scintilla of humor and wit from his characters' broken lives--people whose dreams will surely not come true but who somehow keep trying."--Shelf Awareness
"Black humor is what we expect from Jess Walter. What is different is that the stories give us a sense of the writer's heart we haven't gotten from the parade of bright novels."--Newsday
"Brims with humanity. A-"--Entertainment Weekly
"Deliver[s] unexpected laughs while playing with what it is we think we know...As a reader, I delight in Walter's work. As a writer (humor me here), I curse. He's so freakishly, fiendishly good, it isn't fair."--Seattle Times
"Displays... fearless, unflinching prose in these short stories."--Bookreporter.com
"For over a year, I've been waiting for a story collection to floor me the way Alan Heathcock did with Volt. The 13 stories of Jess Walter's We Live in Water come close."--Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Incrementally, profoundly, brutally, [Walter] pulls back the curtain... We Live in Water is a great collection, in fact, and an important contribution to the literature of our region."--Portland Mercury
"It is perhaps a grim and fatalistic vision that Jess Walter presents in We Live in Water, yet one that in today's America seems all-too-recognizable; no, we may not all live in water, but at one time or another, we have all lived in Spokane."--San Francisco Chronicle
"Jess Walter, who is revered for his novels, shows a gritty side in these clear-cut stories... Each word is perfectly placed...[Walter] brings his first story collection to a smashing end."--Daily Beast
"Mr. Walter brings (his) outlook to short-story writing easily, and with a vengeance... His most bleakly funny, hard-edge book in years."--Janet Maslin, New York Times
"There's a certain magic that comes with reading a good story. Even one that's not about a magical time...[Walter's] collection is full of tragic characters -- the homeless, the drug-addicted and those who have lost everything to gambling debts. But it is not without humor."--Marketplace.org, The Big Book
"This badass collection aligns itself... with Walter's gritty, bighearted novels."--Esquire
"This debut story collection from Walter proves he's as skilled at satire and class commentary in the short form as in his novels...A witty and sobering snapshot of recession-era America."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"Vintage Walter...quirky. And fun."--USA Today
"Walter (Beautiful Ruins) writes-beautifully. . . . Darkly funny, sneakily sad, these stories are very, very good. The algorithm for this debut collection is straightforward: if you like to read, you'll like this book."--Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Walter is a bighearted man who excels at writing about other bighearted, if broken, men. That generosity of spirit coupled with Walter's seeming inability to look away from the messy bits, elevates these stories from dirges to symphonies."--New York Times Book Review
"Walter's got a great ear and a genius for sympathy with America's new dispossessed."--NPR's All Things Considered
"Wildly entertaining and thought-provoking fiction from a prodigiously talented writer."--Booklist
"With a cineaste's eye, [Walter] mov[es] the action at a terrific pace, such velocity and narrative swing...What he makes us understand is bracing, clear. Fiction or no, it is here we see Walter as trusted interlocutor, saying, let me show you, this is where we are now."--The Oregonian (Portland)
