YONDERITES (paperback)

“Stories this much fun rarely have so much heart. The Texas voice on every page is so natural, so effortless, so conversational that it’s easy to overlook how expertly Kevin Grauke has crafted every last detail. I recommend this collection so highly.” 

— James Tate Hill, author of Blind Man’s Bluff

“What if Sherwood Anderson had been born a century later, in small-town Texas instead of Ohio, raised on Lone Star beer and The Last Picture Show? Rather than Winesburg, Ohio, he might have written something like ‘Yonderites.’ These stories come to you with a tiny dagger in one hand and a suture in the other, cutting and then stitching, wounding and then helping to heal. I rooted for the citizens of Yonder like I would my own family, hoping the football coach’s wife might survive the town’s obsessions, the Rattlesnake Queen might avoid the curse of her crown, and the ancient barber might save his cutting for the hair of his patrons and not their flesh. I devoured this collection, whose stories can be taken each on its own but also fitted together into an unbounded puzzle. Grauke has accomplished the tremendous feat of offering stories that individually explode a small moment and collectively bring the heft of a novel, a fully-realized world. The voice of this town will haunt me with its shame and judgment, yet also inspire me with its hope and tenderness. If you thought yonder was just a vague expression of direction, this book will convince you that Yonder is indeed a real place, and after you visit, the vitality of its inhabitants won’t soon leave you.”

— Chris Haven, author of Nesting Habits of Flightless Birds and Bone Seeker