Synopses & Reviews
A gut-punch of a debut about love, grief, and family; the arrival of a brilliant, infectious new voice for our age.
In Matt Sumell's blazing first book, our hero Alby flails wildly against the world around him — he punches his sister (she deserved it), "unprotectos" broads (they deserved it and liked it), gets drunk and picks fights (all deserved), defends defenseless creatures both large and small, and spews insults at children, slow drivers, old ladies, and every single surviving member of his family. In each of these stories Alby distills the anguish, the terror, the humor, and the strange grace — or lack of — he experiences in the aftermath of his mothers death. Swirling at the center of Alby's rage is a grief so big, so profound, it might swallow him whole. As he drinks, screws, and jokes his way through his pain and heartache, Alby's anger, his kindness, and his capacity for good bubble up when he (and we) least expect it. Sumell delivers "a naked rendering of a heart sorting through its broken pieces to survive." — Mark Richard.
Making Nice is a powerful, full-steam-ahead ride that will keep you laughing even as you try to catch your breath; a new classic about love, loss, and the fine line between grappling through grief and fighting for (and with) the only family you've got.
Review
"Making Nice will grab you by the throat, raise your blood pressure, and cause you to crack up in a crowd. It will also break your heart. When they're writing the history of the best characters of our time, Alby will be there, telling the others to get in line." Matthew Thomas, bestselling author of We Are Not Ourselves
Review
“Sumell nails something about his generation which is feat enough, but beneath the funniness and swagger and freshness and raw energy is a sincerity that is rare and true. In that way in particular I find this to be a tremendously hopeful book.” Aimee Bender, author of The Girl In the Flammable Skirt and The Color Master
Review
“With Barry Hannah's death, I thought Id never hear a new, real, hard voice again, a James Dickey kind of voice, a 'wild to be wreckage forever' sound that makes a reader shout hurrah! Ferocious, fearless, extremely pitched fiction is near extinction. May the gust of Matt Sumell's brilliant book Making Nice remind readers of what great work delivers: humor and cruelty, horror and heartwreck in contemporary work written for all time.” Christine Schutt, author of Florida and Prosperous Friends
Review
“The self-destructive narrator of these stories lashes out with reckless intimacy, random violence, and an often hilarious misplaced rage that shoots to wound rather than kill. What saves its victims and the reader is a naked rendering of a heart sorting through its broken pieces to survive. The result is an eloquent empathy, an uplift of hope-filled grace.” Mark Richard, author of Charity and House of Prayer No. 2
Review
"To say that Matt Sumell is an original voice is an immense understatement. Making Nice is ferocious and merciful, comic and heartbreaking. It will turn you inside out." Ramona Ausubel, author of No One is Here Except All of Us and A Guide to Being Born
Synopsis
Named a book of the year by BUSTLE and ELECTRIC LITERATURE
Alby is Holden Caulfield in the Internet age..." --Los Angeles Times
Hailed as "indelible" by Entertainment Weekly, a "cringe-inducingly funny" (The Wall Street Journal) gut-punch of a debut about love, grief, and family "unleashes one of the most comically arresting voices this side of Sam Lipsyte's Homeland" (Publishers Weekly, starred review)
In Matt Sumell's blazing first book, our hero Alby flails wildly against the world around him he punches his sister (she deserved it), "unprotectos" broads (they deserved it and liked it), gets drunk and picks fights (all deserved), defends defenseless creatures both large and small, and spews insults at children, slow drivers, old ladies, and every single surviving member of his family. In each of these stories Alby distills the anguish, the terror, the humor, and the strange grace or lack of he experiences in the aftermath of his mother's death. Swirling at the center of Alby's rage is a grief so big, so profound, it might swallow him whole. As he drinks, screws, and jokes his way through his pain and heartache, Alby's anger, his kindness, and his capacity for good bubble up when he (and we) least expect it. Sumell delivers "a naked rendering of a heart sorting through its broken pieces to survive.*"
Making Nice is a powerful, full-steam-ahead ride that will keep you laughing even as you try to catch your breath; a new classic about love, loss, and the fine line between grappling through grief and fighting for (and with) the only family you've got.
*Mark Richard
"
About the Author
Matt Sumell is a graduate of UC Irvines MFA program, and his fiction has since appeared in Esquire, the Paris Review, Electric Literature, One Story, Noon, and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles, California.