Redemption Center

Fiction. Though his characters are more often buzzed by airplanes than angels, more often preyed on than prayed over, Vincent Craig Wright manages to deliver as much redemption as sin in the thirteen tales, some comic, some dreamlike, that make up this debut collection. He's mostly gentle on his sinners, though, honoring their essential humanity even as they contemplate murder or try to wiggle out of their commitments. Wright's trim lines, devoid of falsity while rich in the small gestures that reveal character, and his casual evocation of the denatured landscape of contemporary America demonstrate that intelligent design is more readily found in art than in the world art describes. "REDEMPTION CENTER is a splendid collection of stories by a natural storyteller who can grab a reader with absolutely irresistible first sentences (an all-too-rare talent) and then never let go. Vincent Craig Wright has got the Gift, and I now stand ready to eagerly read anything he writes"--Robert Olen Butler.