Jodi Angel s first collection of short stories, "The History of
Vegas," was published in 2005 and was named as a "San Francisco
Chronicle" "Best Book of 2005" as well as a "Los Angeles Times"
Book Review "Discovery." Her work has appeared in "Tin House,"
"Zoetrope: All-Story," and the "Sycamore Review," among other
publications and anthologies. Her stories have received several
Pushcart Prize nominations and she was selected for Special Mention
in 2007. Most recently her story, "A Good Deuce," was noted as a
"Distinguished Story" in "The Best American Stories" 2012. She grew
up in a small town in Northern California--in a family of
girls.
"
"In this accomplished, moving collection of stories about boys, she
proves the uselessness of the old dictum that you should write what
you know."
" New York Times"
." . .fall in love with Jodi Angel and her new story collection,
"You Only Get Letters from Jail." . ."
"Esquire Magazine"
"Best Book of Summer. . .Prose stripped down to the primer.
Dialogue that burns like cheap whiskey. Teenaged guys with dirt
under their fingernails and Doritos stains on their shirts trying
to keep it together as they lose their mothers to death and drugs,
as they lose themselves in a culture that doesn't give much of a
damn about men without manicures. Jodi Angel does give a damn: She
has these stories to prove it."
"Esquire Magazine"
." . .Jodi Angel writes with a voice dripping with sweat and
Schlitz. "You Only Get Letters from Jail" is about young men and
women teetering on a razor s bloody edge, living lives in which
cheap thrills are the only kind."
"Esquire" Four
"Angel is an indie-press star."
"Marie Claire"
." . .Angel bravely does what many writers are afraid to do. In
tough, sometimes brutally lyrical language, she gives young,
desperate voicesincluding their slangfull rein of the stage."
"San Francisco Chronicle"
"[T]hese stories describe the moments of adrenaline and gut
instinct that can mark an imperiled adolescent s first break for
something better or set a course for a lifetime on the skids. .
.Every time [Angel] dives into this all too familiar world, she
surfaces with insights both beautiful and strange."
Lambda Literary
"A must-read for short story lovers and anyone who was ever a
screwed-up teenager.
CLMP
""You Only Get Letters from Jail" contains first rate fiction,
crackling with conflict, high stakes, and drama; it s a joy to read
and definitely one of the year s best."
Necessary Fiction
"Angel collects 11 visceral stories focused on the lives of young
men who feel and seem trapped by their circumstances."
"Cleveland Plain Dealer"
"That voice is active and highly descriptive, yet never anxious nor
panicked. In Letters From Jail, things look grim. But they rarely
look hopeless. . .The burn comes from Angel's profound powers of
description, which allow a reader to taste a beer that's gone warm
during a lakeside outing, smell the burned rubber after a hot rod
brakes too quickly or feel the enveloping flesh of an overweight
barfly who provides unexpected comfort to the boy who lost his
mother."
"The Sacramento Bee"
"Like a master phlebotomist, Angel manages to hit vein again and
again, allowing her hardscrabble narrators grace and particularity
rarely aligned with male characters from harsh backgrounds."
"The Oregonian"
"The prose in Angel s story collection, all about young men who can
t seem to grow up, has a distinct, dreamy sentimentalism to it;
somehow, it seems to hold your hand as you turn each page. But it
has teeth, too. She depicts vivid scenes of places you d never
choose to go, and yet, you d never dare turn away. Nor would you
dare forget them. It s a feat."
Bustle.com
"Jodi Angel writes like an angelin the full sense of the
designation--which is to say someone fallen out of the armpit of a
restless deitysharp-eyed, ruthless, and tender at the same time.
I'd walk a long way to hear her read these stories, and plan to buy
a half dozen copies just so I can give them away saying, 'Look at
this. You have never before read anything like this.'"
Dorothy Allison
"Jodi Angel embodies this pack of low-rent, no-count, hard-luck,
heart-tugging teenage boys so thoroughly that one can only conclude
she was one, in this or some former lifetime. Plus, she really
knows her way around a paragraph. In these stories, child support
never gets paid and guns go off too often and deciding to love
something almost guarantees its immediate departure or death. These
are hard, wonderful, compassion-inducing stories, laced with
surprising and surprisingly powerful grace notes, flashes of heat
lightning in the dark."
Pam Houston, author of "Contents May Have Shifted"
""You Only Get Letters From Jail" is one of the finest and truest
collections of 'American' short stories I have ever read. Set in
small towns among muscle cars and grange halls and rock and roll
and damaged vets and divorced parents, Jodi Angel's stories explore
in sharp and often funny prose the lives of teenagers trying their
best to make sense of things in this world that, more often than
not, remain inexplicable."
Donald Ray Pollock, author of "The Devil All the Time"
In these charged stories, the young narrators do not understand
that they cannot afford their innocence, their tenderness, in these
worlds. I was captured by the power of Jodi Angel's fresh,
uninsulated prose and I read toward the secret harm in each story
like a man who has heard a noise in the other room. "You Only Get
Letters from Jail" is a gripping collection.
Ron Carlson, author of "The Signal"
Jodi Angel s tough and elegant stories remind me of the work of Ray
Carver, Melanie Rae Thon, and Richard Ford. These are big-hearted
renderings of folks struggling to find beauty in a harsh world, the
pain of Angel s characters driven into their potent desire to
escape, to find mercy, to be healed. The eleven stories in "You
Only Get Letters from Jail" are radiant with wise and powerful
drama, serious, earnest, and true.
Alan Heathcock, author of "Volt""
." . . Jodi Angel writes with a voice dripping with sweat and
Schlitz. "You Only Get Letters from Jail" is about young men and
women teetering on a razor's bloody edge, living lives in which
cheap thrills are the only kind."
-- "Esquire" Four
"Jodi Angel writes like an angel--in the full sense of the
designation--which is to say someone fallen out of the armpit of a
restless deity--sharp-eyed, ruthless, and tender at the same time.
I'd walk a long way to hear her read her stories, and plan to buy a
half dozen copies just so I can give them away
saying, 'Look at this. You have never read anything like
this.'"
--Dorothy Allison, author of "Bastard Out of Carolina"
"Jodi Angel embodies this pack of low-rent, no-count, hard-luck,
heart-tugging teenage boys so thoroughly that one can only conclude
she was one, in this or some former lifetime. Plus, she really
knows her way around a paragraph. In these stories, child support
never gets paid and guns go off too often and deciding to love
something almost guarantees its immediate departure or death. These
are hard, wonderful, compassion-inducing stories, laced with
surprising and surprisingly powerful grace notes, flashes of heat
lightning in the dark."
-- Pam Houston, author of "Contents May Have Shifted" ""You Only
Get Letters From Jail" is one of the finest and truest collections
of 'American' short stories I have ever read. Set in small towns
among muscle cars and grange halls and rock and roll and damaged
vets and divorced parents, Jodi Angel's stories explore in sharp
and often funny prose the lives of teenagers trying their best to
make sense of things in this world that, more often than not,
remain inexplicable."
-- Donald Ray Pollock, author of "The Devil All the Time"
"In these charged stories, the young narrators do not understand
that they cannot afford their innocence, their tenderness, in these
worlds. I was captured by the power of Jodi Angel's fresh, uninsul
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