Praise for Smash & Grab"Jarman is one of those writers, like Padgett Powell or Joy Williams or Barry Hannah, whose style is the work’s substance, its DNA. His phrases ('We age into dinosaurs with embolisms,' say) burst with oddity and oomph . . . Quirky, stylish, daring."—Kirkus Reviews (starred)"Canadian author Jarman’s stories are just the thing for readers seeking a sharp, voicey narrative."—Laurie Muchnick, Kirkus Reviews' '5 Collections that Short Story Fans Shouldn't Miss'"One senses that Jarman’s writing is handmade, like delicate items in some rare boutique shop that is only open one day a week . . . His new collection, Smash & Grab, is filled with vertiginous, telegrammatic writing, and his heroes, misfits, outcasts, and seers are shot through with a romantic longing and an earthbound fallenness; they reside among beer-sodden floorboards, they discern and actively seek out the stars, but are poignantly aware of their own mortality."—Baret Magarian, World Literature Today"With Smash & Grab, Jarman gathers disparate threads, memories, and digressions into something greater than the sum of its parts. As much as the outside world may disturb, in these pages, readers will find a rich inner life on full display."—Sam White, Literary Review of Canada"In his new powerful collection of short stories, Jarman continues his mastery of the form, with seemingly no limits to his fervid imagination . . . All 14 stories show Jarman brilliantly and seamlessly tackling any genre, from memoir to offbeat sci-fi to manic surrealism."—Rory Runnells, Winnipeg Free Press"In Smash & Grab, Mark Anthony Jarman continues to render a world flush with hazard where anything can happen, doing it in his own singularly beguiling and entertaining fashion."—Ian Colford, Seaboard Review"Jarman packs more into his sentences than any half dozen other authors combined . . . [Smash & Grab's] cumulative riches are plentiful and unique to one of the most invigorating and unconventional writers of short fiction around."—Steven W. Beattie, Quill & Quire"You may be caught in the middle of a Jarman story wondering what exactly is going on, but you will never be caught in the middle of a Jarman story bored. Jarman’s language here, as always, is pyrotechnic."—Michael Bryson, Miramichi ReaderPraise for Burn Man"Anyone who enjoys poetry in prose, who feels enlivened by language and struck by sentences, will find much to admire in Burn Man. Jarman’s stories are full of violence, tragedy and mistakes. Yet there’s plenty of humor and heart too . . . Burn Man left me seeing a bit more beauty in our hurting-heart world."—Lincoln Michel, New York Times"The stories in Burn Man, by the Canadian writer Mark Anthony Jarman, derive from the . . . raucous lineage of Barry Hannah, Thomas McGuane and Denis Johnson . . . He gives us a gallery of antiheroes—some of them bona fide criminals but many just screwups—who are helpless in the grip of their worst impulses."—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal"In these 21 selected tales by Jarman—a Canadian writer who, if there were any literary justice, would be much better known in the US—marginalized men are on the road, on the run, failing to figure out how to stay in one place, how to stay sane, how to pin life down and make sense of it . . . Literature at the highest level: heartrending, disquieting, fascinating."—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
