"Funny and fierce. . . . An essential book, full of unexpected bursts of meaning and beauty." –
Ploughshares "Wonderful. . . . Comforting. . . . What remains uniformly dazzling throughout is O'Neill's remarkable dialogue." –
AM New York "Elegant, often challenging, and always entertaining." –
The Washington Times
"O'Neill writes with an urgent timeliness. . . . The thrill of seeing the here and now transmuted into morally serious and comically rich prose is heightened once you realize its rarity." –
Guernica "Beautifully crafted. . . . Wonderful. . . . Gloriously Kafkaesque. . . . O'Neill's tales often echo [David Foster] Wallace's mixture of humor and profundity, demonstrating a similar, almost preternatural eye for the absurdities of contemporary life." –
Booklist "[A] fine collection . . . Compelling." –
Houston Chronicle
"[O'Neill's] subversive humor finds new angles. . . . The angst of modern life pervades the daily lives of the characters." –
Time
"Poignant. . . . Fascinating. . . . The characters are subtly crafted, nuanced in their observations of others, and understated. . . . [O'Neill] quietly leads us toward a reflection of ourselves that, perhaps, makes us just a bit more appreciative of all the 'good trouble' we have." –
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Sly and winningly offbeat. . . . Conventional masculinity needs shrewd anatomists like Joseph O'Neill more than ever before." –
The Observer (London)
"Elegant. . . . Remarkable. . . . Shot through with a subtle psychology and human attention. . . . In
Good Trouble, what is left unsaid and unanalysed returns, is unburied, and both its comic and quietly tragic potential is set loose." –
The Irish Times
"Mordantly funny. . . . Powerfully felt. . . . Examin[es] what makes us tick with humour, verve and sharp insight." –
The Herald (Scotland)
"Powerful. . . . Compelling. . . . O'Neill's stories impeccably capture the minutiae of modern life and the interior struggles that are both molehills and mountains." –
Lincoln Journal-Star
"A thoroughly enjoyable collection in which O'Neill treats his characters with a wry sympathy and a sense of fun. . . . There's often a subversive, comic element in O'Neill's writing. . . . He probes the frictions that make marriages and families fissure or fight for survival, the situations where discomfort breeds anxiety and resentment mushrooms into malaise." –
Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"O'Neill's writing is always inventive. . . . The reader is delightfully tossed about. . . . The collection will please fans of quirky short fiction." –
Publishers Weekly
"Absorbing. . . . In his typically sharp, smart language, [O'Neill] shows us characters undone by contemporary life, not grandly but in the small, essential ways that define our culture." –
Library Journal
