Perfect Circle »

Sean Stewart is the author of the innovative I Love Bees and Beast search operas, two short stories, and the novels Perfect Circle, Mockingbird, Galveston, Clouds End, Nobody's Son, Passion Play, and Resurrection Man.

A dark, funny, fast-moving novel of Texas, family, and perfect pop songs.

The Washington Post - Paul Di Filippo

Stewart's mastery of Will's first-person narration is unflinching and unfaltering. The voice conjured here is absolutely authentic and affecting, as is the portrait of Houston, Will's stomping grounds. Will's vast extended family of oddballs and losers and honest toilers imparts a John-Crowleyesque heft to the book. And his treatment of the ghosts -- "Ghosts don't do things to you. Ghosts make you do unspeakable things to yourself" -- is truly eerie. Readers familiar with the quotidian spookiness of master English horror writer M.R. James will find similar frissons here, but married to the gritty demimonde in the novels of American noir writer James Crumley, resulting in a fusion of black humor and pathos, blood and ectoplasm.