“A drinking buddy turned me on to these stories.  I looked for the book after we’d been out bar hopping but couldn’t find it.  Barnes and Noble said they could order it.  I didn’t know much about chinchillas before the book arrived.  Fascinating!”
–George Peter Marmaduke

“Magisterial.  Assured.  Fulsome.  Bodacious.  Preponderant.  Granular.  Auspicious.  Consanguineous.  Consequent.  Modular.  Pendulous.  Puissant.  Prolix.  Punchy.  Awesome.”
–Elvin von Framinghausen, Vocabulary Today

“If Mr. Branigan’s stories are ever translated into Japanese, I’ll be sure to read them.”
–Ichiru Kawatani

“I found the book grossly insulting to virtually everyone and everything I hold dear.  I loved it!”
–Susan Wampler, Political Commentator

“There wasn’t much about farming in them—one story, I think, was kind of about it but I read it fast because I had a whole stack of other things to read to look for references to farming—but without farms none of these characters would have seen the light of day.”
–-Everett Clodspur, Agriculture Weekly

“Somebody left a copy of this book in the doctor’s office where I went for my sinuses.  It was the only thing there besides Modern Health, Mr. Boopsie’s Magazine for Children, and pamphlets about shingles so I looked at it.  I read part of one of the stories before I was called back to the examination room. I can’t remember what it was about but it seemed pretty good.”
–Maisie Highsmith

“I ordered this book from Amazon.com and when it arrived I found the packaging hard to open and when I finally got the book out it was face down and I was looking at the back of the book for seconds before I could even get it turned over and see the cover so I gave it one star on the Amazon site.  When I read the stories, I thought maybe I’d been unfair.  Maybe I should go back and change my review since I’ve read the book.  But my girlfriend says, ‘No.’  First impressions are always right, she says.”
–Moe Fensterwald

“I find that these stories set the tone we aspire to create here.  They are mordant in a nice way.  They remind me of our most expensive coffins.”
–Arthur Brannigan, Big Sleep Funeral Home

“My cat Alphonse spent several minutes looking at this book when I left it in the seat of my chair.  Alphonse spent much longer looking at this than he did Anna Karenina, several titles by Georges Simenon, or Guns, Germs, and Steel when I left them there.  This must mean something.”
–Annie Furlong

“People say fiction is dead and short fiction is deader than a hammer.  Yeah, right.  Pick up this book and tell me that.  Better yet, pick up several copies and tell me that.  Best of all, buy an entire printing and tell me that.”
–Clive Branigan

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Rick Kast was an English major, then went to law school to learn a whole new bag of tricks.  He writes fiction that he hopes is more interesting than the fiction he’s read in the factual recitation sections of his opponents’ briefs, and humor pieces that are much funnier than his opponents’ oral arguments.  His fiction has appeared in Sixfold and The First Line.   When not writing he enjoys listening to music, good food and drink, and engaging in snappy repartee with robotic phone calls.