05/04/2015
Each one of the stories in Harper’s slim debut collection goes off like a shotgun blast of crime fiction tropes: convicts, skinheads, meth mouths, dog fights, crooked cops, barflies, and botched robberies. Doomed men and desperate women paint themselves into increasingly tight corners, where the only choice left is to come out shooting, like a hillbilly Butch Cassidy. Some stories connect dots: the skinhead who takes on a local legend in “I Wish They Never Named Him Mad Dog” is the same man whose failure to show up for a drug deal in “Always Thirsty” allows a gang of Midwestern Bosnians to disembowel the guy who did. Aryan Steel makes more than one appearance, as does Jackie Blue’s, a dive bar with more blood on the floor than booze. “Playing Dead” shifts the action to Brooklyn, where a coke dealer cheats death but takes responsibility for a deal gone wrong by cleaning up the mess—with a chainsaw. And “Beautiful Trash” sets another mess cleaner on a collision course with a publicist for A-list celebrities who are spiraling out of control in the City of Angels. At 17 pages, this is the book’s longest story, ending on the deepest emotional note. But the entire collection is a tight, tough parcel of pulpy, high-octane tales. Agent: Nat Sobel, Sobel Weber. (July)
A beautifully-written ride through America’s inner darkness.” — Roger Hobbs, author of Ghostman
“With Love and Other Wounds, Jordan Harper achieves the rarest of literary feats: an economy of language that manages to both concentrate and expand. His starkly beautiful take on the wide-eyed and downtrodden stabs at the heart of the American Dream.” — Joe Clifford, author of Junkie Love and Lamentation
“Jordan Harper is one of the best short story writers of this generation.” — Todd Robinson
“Each one of the stories in Harper’s slim debut collection goes off like a shotgun blast of crime fiction tropes... the entire collection is a tight, tough parcel of pulpy, high-octane tales.” — Publishers Weekly
“Raw, gritty, and unsettling... VERDICT: As he runs, John’s mouth ‘felt full of hot pennies,’ and every story here is a hot penny worth much more. For fans of Cormac McCarthy, Daniel Woodrell, and Bruce Machart.” — Library Journal
“Bottom-line survival competes hard against issues of loyalty, friendship, and family in this disturbing, sometimes-ugly version of reality.” — Kirkus Reviews
“With his first collection of short stories, Love and Other Wounds, Missouri-native Jordan Harper kicks the door of crime fiction off its splintered frame.” — Publishers Weekly
“What sets Harper apart is his ability to deliver genuine literary epiphanies...Harper delivers tension, action, black humor, sex, and violence-but, above all, characters we quickly know, understand, and still remember even after their brains have painted the walls.” — Booklist
“His words hit with the impact of a shotgun blast and tear at any sense of security like an angry Rottweiler.” — Los Angeles Magazine
“[A] young writer that will probably only remain under the radar for a short time… Jordan Harper’s Love and Other Wounds hits you like the smooth burn of a shot of whiskey, awakens your senses, and is an all-around, visceral tour de force.” — Huffington Post
“Harper brings his own skewed eye and ear to what he calls ‘that country-grit subculture’… Harper’s stories are relentlessly violent, but he seasons the violence with compassion for his characters’ fates.” — Shelf Awareness
“To be blunt, there really isn’t a misstep in the entire bunch.” — Lit Reactor
A gritty collection of short stories about people with murder on their minds. Why we’re reading: Harper’s unforgettable characters, who include a jewel thief, a Hollywood fixer, and a man who escapes his own grave.” — Esquire.com
[A] young writer that will probably only remain under the radar for a short time… Jordan Harper’s Love and Other Wounds hits you like the smooth burn of a shot of whiskey, awakens your senses, and is an all-around, visceral tour de force.
Jordan Harper is one of the best short story writers of this generation.
With Love and Other Wounds, Jordan Harper achieves the rarest of literary feats: an economy of language that manages to both concentrate and expand. His starkly beautiful take on the wide-eyed and downtrodden stabs at the heart of the American Dream.
A beautifully-written ride through America’s inner darkness.
What sets Harper apart is his ability to deliver genuine literary epiphanies...Harper delivers tension, action, black humor, sex, and violence-but, above all, characters we quickly know, understand, and still remember even after their brains have painted the walls.
His words hit with the impact of a shotgun blast and tear at any sense of security like an angry Rottweiler.
A gritty collection of short stories about people with murder on their minds. Why we’re reading: Harper’s unforgettable characters, who include a jewel thief, a Hollywood fixer, and a man who escapes his own grave.
To be blunt, there really isn’t a misstep in the entire bunch.
Harper brings his own skewed eye and ear to what he calls ‘that country-grit subculture’… Harper’s stories are relentlessly violent, but he seasons the violence with compassion for his characters’ fates.
What sets Harper apart is his ability to deliver genuine literary epiphanies...Harper delivers tension, action, black humor, sex, and violence-but, above all, characters we quickly know, understand, and still remember even after their brains have painted the walls.
04/01/2015
Raw, gritty, and unsettling, the stories in Harper's debut collection feature tough lives lived mostly on the edge, from John, running through bullets and high-desert wildfire from his own freshly dug grave; to Mark, cut down in a firefight with the cops after robbing a gas station; to Palmer, determined to save Lucy, severely injured in a dog-fighting ring. VERDICT As he runs, John's mouth "felt full of hot pennies," and every story here is a hot penny worth much more. For fans of Cormac McCarthy, Daniel Woodrell, and Bruce Machart.
2015-04-15
Criminals, lowlifes, and losers—many of them also quixotic romantics—people Harper's first collection of short stories, which are set mostly in the Ozarks with side trips to cities like Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and Detroit. In the opener, "Agua Dulce," a meth addict's debt comes due and he realizes how far he'll go to protect his child from his merciless dealer and his cronies in Aryan Steel, a group that makes the Aryan Nation look mild. Ironically, in a later story, "Heart Check," a new prison inmate and Steel wannabe, recently convicted of killing a child, discovers that he may have misunderstood the Steel code. But in none of these stories is the moral code exactly mainstream, from "Prove It All Night," about a 17-year-old Missouri girl whose robbery spree with her older boyfriend ends badly for him, to "Lucy in the Pit," about a fight-dog trainer whose loyalty to a dog is tested by the animal's owner, to "Your Finest Moment," about a policeman plotting revenge on a fellow cop he's caught in bed with his girlfriend. Bar owner and retired rural gangster Jackie Blue is a minor character in the almost comic "I Wish They Never Named Him Mad Dog," in which a nickname turns a loser into a tough into a dead body, and takes center stage in "Red Hair and Black Leather" when an enticing young woman asks for his protection against her biker ex; Blue may be old but he's smarter and tougher than any other character in the book. Certainly smarter than the narrator of the title story, who sets a dog on his loved one, already bleeding to death from a bullet wound after a botched robbery, in order to save him. "Beautiful Trash" is set in a different but perhaps even more morally bankrupt milieu, celebrity-strewn LA, where covering up the stars' dirty scandals is a business that can ruin more ordinary lives. Bottom-line survival competes hard against issues of loyalty, friendship, and family in this disturbing, sometimes-ugly version of reality.
