All That Is Left Is All That Matters

Reviews / Votes

"Slouka showcases not merely his productivity and versatility, but his gift for creating consistently engaging and emotionally resonant stories in whatever literary form he chooses. . . . stories as tender and beautiful as these are among those things that might, paradoxically, serve to persuade thoughtful readers that life is worth living." -- Shelf Awareness "Crisp, poignant. . . . These are subtle, meditative, well-crafted stories, death-backed but life-affirming." -- Kirkus "The power in the memories [Slouka] so intensely evokes is heart stopping in its beauty, liberating in its acknowledgment of essential truths. . . . Put Slouka's work in the hands of fans of the Richards-Ford, Powers, and Russo-and watch what happens." -- Booklist, starred "Disquieting, sharply compressed short stories. . . . Even the most seemingly casual of these tales vibrate with danger, and together, they create the sense of a world where unendurable loss is just one misplaced footstep away." -- Publishers Weekly "Mark Slouka is one of the best American writers alive today, and the title of his new story collection is perfect: this is essential stuff, and it will break your heart." -- Brian Hall, author of Fall of Frost "The subtlety of these wonderful stories takes you by stealth. They leave you with the startled feeling that you've traveled a long distance and emerged in an unexpected new place. Mark Slouka is a writer of enormous and unusual gifts, and he offers them graciously and with an appealing wryness." -- Lynne Sharon Schwartz, author of Two-Part Inventions "Mark Slouka perfectly breaks open my heart with each truthful, gorgeous sentence. I wish I could write out for you all the sentences and passages I underlined. But that would be the whole shebang, the whole damn book." -- Victoria Redel, author of Before Everything "Few writers convey the urgencies of the heart like Mark Slouka does. Remorse, betrayal, fear, mortality-love, most of all-in these wondrous stories the most powerful emotions shine from the smallest details: the lonely creak of oarlocks, the silence of a man about to cry, the groan of a screen door opening a lifetime ago, the lies with which we console ourselves against inevitable loss." -- Andrew Foster Altschul, author of Lady Lazarus "Mark Slouka knows the secrets of story-making: the complex characters registered with the flick of a gesture, the catch-breath moments of collapsing certainty, the unerring recoil of memory-and in every line the razor's edge, the frightful mortal implication. All That Is Left Is All That Matters is a perfectly titled and brilliantly written collection." -- Sven Birkerts, author of Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age