Saturday, March 5, 2011


Praise for Nothing or Next to Nothing:

In a world in which nothing or next to nothing matters anymore, Barry Graham's hero Derek is doomed because he hasn't erased his last shred of decency yet. He suffers abuse, heartbreak, beatings, and ultimately the loss of the only person he ever cared for, because he can't believe in a world where a McDonald's restaurant might be the last church, and an okay BigMac our last prayer. Graham's book is an elegy to something we've lost without noticing or caring. It's a mean punch to the chin; it floors you, and still you'll be glad you took it.
-- Stefan Kiesbye

Barry Graham's Nothing or Next to Nothing takes an unflinching look at the land Whitman once lauded, a land now pimpled with Golden Arches and populated by heads full of American Dreams turned rancid. No illusions here, friends. No redemption, either. Just the bones and gristle of a hard life. Graham's distinctive prose illuminates those things usually left in the dark corners of American culture, places Uncle Walt could never have imagined.
-- Christopher Kennedy

Nothing or Next to Nothing works. It doesn’t try to be too clever despite the non linear storytelling. It is as gentle-paced as amphetamine and inhabits a universe diametrically opposite from the Waltons.
--
Martin Macaulay

With its seamless juxtaposition of tenderness and violence, absurdity and cruelty, Nothing or Next to Nothing is a well executed experiment in 21st century American Naturalism.

-- The Examiner

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