Review

I'm sorry to report that since APRIL & OLIVER is Tess Callahan's debut as a novelist, an immediate regret awaits all readers on the last page of this enormously sagacious and compelling book, to wit: that it's done, finished, consumed; that there are as yet no other Callahan novels to devour, and heaven only knows how long we must wait for the author's next work to reach our greedy hands. The urgency of Callahan's narrative and its volatile juxtapositions--innocent passion and dark sexuality; duty and desire; first love and ruined love--make it impossible not to care deeply for these characters and their thwarted yearning and their heart-wrenching stories.

-Bob Shacochis, National Book Award-winning author of Easy in the Islands

Grappling fates are the DNA of suspense, and Tess Callahan braids loss, longing, romance and violence into a tense, gratifying narrative. The characters in APRIL & OLIVER feel inexorable--either destined or doomed to be together. The need to discover which--and how--keeps the reader turning pages.

-Sven Birkerts, author of Reading Life: Books for the Ages