Kyle Minor

Kyle Minor is the author of two collections of short fiction: Praying Drunk (2014) and In the Devil's Territory (2008). He is the winner of the 2012 Iowa Review Prize for Short Fiction and the Tara M. Kroger Prize for Short Fiction, one of Random House’s Best New Voices of 2006, and a three-time honoree in the Atlantic Monthly contest. His work has appeared online at Esquire, The Atlantic, Salon, and Tin House, and in print in The New York Times Book Review, The Southern Review, The Iowa Review, Best American Mystery Stories 2008, Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers: Random House Presents the Best New Voices of 2006, Forty Stories: New Voices from Harper Perennial, and Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013.

http://www.kyleminor.com

Praise for Praying Drunk:

“The stories [in Praying Drunk] span decades as they move from Kentucky to Haiti and points between, but they work in concert to slowly reveal the landscape of an emotionally desolate quasi-America sinking under the weight of its own faith. Minor writes beautifully about these ruined lives.” - The New York Times Book Review

“The beauty of Praying Drunk is that it transcends suffering to evoke the sublime.” - Los Angeles Times

“Nothing here is contained, the way a hit single on a record stands alone—characters recur, themes and forms are deepened and visited again, moments glimpsed earlier come back with haunting force. ” - The Atlantic

“[Kyle] Minor mauls you with his vicious prose, and then takes your hand and asks you to join him in a form of prayer.” - Electric Literature

“When the characters residing in Kyle Minor’s engrossing and lively Praying Drunk find a toehold on the good life, I hope that it’s autobiographical. When the characters find themselves enveloped in desperate situations, irreversible circumstances, and despair, I pray that it’s solely out of the writer’s imagination. These fine stories–up there with the best works of Padgett Powell, Donald Barthelme, and Robert Coover–never straddle a milquetoast fence: they’re extreme in humor, extreme in sorrowfulness, and 100% individually-wrapped masterpieces. I am haunted and mesmerized by this collection.”

- George Singleton, author of Stray Decorum

“Praying Drunk gets the whole thing down: the cosmic muck and the local glory, the big questions and the tiny lives, the bullies and the saviors, the screaming at the sky and the lights by the side of the road late at night on a long drive. I finished this book with my heart pounding and grateful, my coffee cold and my smile wide and crying like a baby.”

- Daniel Handler, author of Adverbs and The Basic Eight

“Watch Praying Drunk’s lovely, lonely people wrestle with Minor’s dark God and remember when you too tried to reason with Him and unravel His mysterious commands. These passionate tales, full of longing and daring and honesty, will disturb and inspire you.”

- Deb Olin Unferth, author of Revolution

“Similar to a great magic trick, the 13 stories in Minor’s (In the Devil’s Territory) latest lure reader investment with strong visuals while simultaneously pulling the rug out from underfoot with clever, literary sleights–of-hand. Though not necessarily linked in the traditional sense, there is a sequential order to the collection—ideas, locations, incidents, and characters echo as the volume chugs forward—and the result is an often dazzling, emotional, funny, captivating puzzle.” – Publishers Weekly