Reviews
“The End of the Straight and Narrow announces the arrival of a visionary voice in contemporary fiction. It will be a pleasure to track the arc of David McGlynn’s journey.” —San Antonio Express-News
“McGlynn’s characters may have more in common with Nathan Englander’s anguished orthodox Jews in For the Relief of Unbearable Urges than anyone else since Flannery O’Connor stopped baptizing fervid zealots.” —The Texas Observer
“McGlynn . . . has a way with the thoughts of people who find themselves unmoored from everything they had expected out of life.” —Isthmus (Madison, WI)
“McGlynn’s control of the short story and his characters’ subtle discoveries are nicely evident . . .” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“This is a collection about religion, but more. It’s about how what we believe affects our lives in the real world.” — Baton Rouge Advocate
“Too often writers either glamorize or tear apart their faith-filled characters, trying to make either a sainted or an ugly example of them whether they be Christian, Jew, Muslim or other. Personally I find it refreshing to see believing people be believable. So thanks to David McGlynn. My brain, as well as my soul, enjoyed the ride to The End Of The Straight And Narrow.” —carp(e) libris reviews
“There is agony in these stories, and there is forgiveness and redemption. . . . McGlynn is author to watch; this is a collection to savor.”—ForeWord Magazine
“David McGlynn’s debut collection of well-crafted short stories stays in the mind longer than most books . . . he writes patiently and well about real people suddenly facing ultimate issues. There are lots of surprises.”
—Dallas Morning News
“McGlynn's superlatively crafted, deeply sympathetic debut story collection traces the spiritual agonies of Christians trying to make sense of their faith within the vicissitudes of human nature. . . .”—Publishers Weekly
“A good book gets under your skin. A great book moves you toward wisdom. The End of the Straight and Narrow is the wisest book I’ve read in a very long time. This is smart, sharp, soul-testing American fiction.”—Alyson Hagy, author of Snow, Ashes
“When a young writer proves in a first collection that he is the real thing, when the stories are as riveting and haunting as David McGlynn’s are, the temptation is to ask how it is possible. McGlynn writes both elegantly and deeply about the trick of salvation and the strange consolation of suffering itself, about the sorrows of the faithful and the faith that’s required of the nonbeliever.”—Jane Hamilton, author of When Madeline Was Young
“Whether he imagines a child whose final wish is to kill, or enters the heart and mind of a young man who blames himself for his mother’s blindness, McGlynn moves with such patience and curiosity, such exquisite tenderness for his people, we feel his life and ours may hang in the balance.”—Melanie Rae Thon, author of Sweet Hearts.
“David McGlynn’s profoundly compassionate stories are sure-footed and often witty, grounded in a vision so rich and full it seems to bring extra color to the world. With these luminous stories, David McGlynn announces himself as a writer of consequence.”—Erin McGraw, author of The Good Life
“A collection as humbling as it is meet. I am impressed by his ‘believers’ whom he refuses to trivialize, categorize, or marginalize. I haven’t the words to say what a wallop McGlynn laid upside my head.”—Lee K. Abbott, author of All Things, All at Once
“Wonderfully controlled stories of the well-intentioned and the flawed, those precarious souls who attempt to live a moral life in an often immoral universe. McGlynn’s collection is not just entertaining and memorable, but necessary.”—Lee Martin, author of The Bright Forever
“David McGlynn's debut collection reads nothing like a debut collection. His voice is solid and mature, his stories sharp and evocative, his vision wise beyond his years. But what this conventional praise I have just handed out doesn't even begin to measure is the fact of how important these stories are.”—Bret Lott, author of Jewel
“In these generous, effulgent stories David McGlynn stays so close to his characters that we can feel their longing, their feverish hope to keep their secrets. This is a rich, challenging, accomplished book.”—Ron Carlson, author of Five Skies