"As I read the sharp, compelling stories in Other Emergencies—some flash, some longer, many with recurring characters—I was struck by how few writers in America today are populating their books with the kind of people in this collection. For most of these characters, the American Dream has turned out to be an empty promise, but still, they survive. And there’s a lot to survive in this book: the gun violence that populates these stories with an all-too-realistic frequency, the grief of other losses, the constant hustle necessary to pay the bills. Sarah Freligh tells these stories with an eye for the details of small-town life, in prose that is both free of affectation yet poetic in its observations. There’s an urgency to these stories, and an underlying music that drew me in and left me wanting more. If Bruce Springsteen wrote a short story collection, I think it would be much like Other Emergencies."
—Lisa Borders, author of Last Night at the Disco
"Freligh writes about disappointment like a luminous funhouse. These stories glow through the cracks of the crumbling American Dream. With wit and biting precision, she shows us hurt, but reminds us we’re allowed to laugh, to feel awed, and, best of all, to feel less alone in our own stumbles. Freligh is a masterful writer, who breathes such life into her wounded characters with her blazing prose."
—Dustin M. Hoffman, author of Such a Good Man
"In this powerful collection, Freligh transforms the cold, windswept Great Lakes region and its hardworking people into bright, unexpected “prickly glitter.” With her trademark tenacity and verbal finesse, she confronts the dark perils of American culture—mass shootings, rising crime, political corruption—and distills them down to miniature moments of consequence. A master stylist of vibrant, concise prose, her sentences zing with beauty and grit. Freligh’s wry sense of humor make us root for these slightly off-kilter, resilient characters."
—Anne Panning, author of Super America
