How They Were Found
"Body toll notwithstanding,How They Were Foundis anything but bleak. For one thing, there's the prose: generous, urgent, rhythmic." --The Believer"Bell knows how to keep his world in check, his every word balanced against another, delicately, like a system of weights."--The Rumpus"Bell has built a national reputation completely outside the support system of New York publishing, on the strength of his stories and novellas. He is that rare sort of writer the reader would recognize even if published anonymously." --HTMLGiant"The characters are doomed. The stories are bleak. Yet they are written so beautifully that they become something else: an exuberant example of the power of language to transport and transform." --Shelf Unbound"Bell, here, at the start of his career, displays the kind of intelligence, self-awareness, and care with regard to his prose that suggests he may become a major talent." --Jeff Vandermeer"Reminscent of Friedrich Dürrenmatt'sThe Winter War in Tibetin its calm examination and unsettling embodiment of mental and physical extremes,How They Were Foundis a dreamer's chronicle of the loss and partial recovery of a world given over to the wrecking ball. Fierce, unflinching, funny,How They Were Foundis just the book we need right now, Matt Bell just the writer."—Laird Hunt, author ofRay of the Star"How They Were Foundoffers a world with shifting rules, described with a lovely and deceptive simplicity. This guide shows you thirteen different types of wilderness, and you can spend all day exploring before you realize you are lost."—Amelia Gray, author ofMuseum of the WeirdandAM/PM"You're a robot if the stories in Matt Bell's debut collection don't exhilarate, frighten, and unalterably change you. His wild manipulation of form and genre makes the bulk of contemporary fiction feel bloodless and inert in comparison, but it is Bell's recurring arrival at something sturdy and true about human behavior that makes the stories inHow They Were Foundso rewarding and resonant."—Matthew Derby, author ofSuper Flat Times: Stories