Magic Hours

“[Tom Bissell] writes these essays with a storyteller’s eye for detail.” —New York Times Book Review

“Bissell writes astutely, smartly, and with acerbic candor.” —The Boston Globe

“A highly gratifying literary experience.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“Sharply observed, lushly descriptive and often extremely funny.” —Salon

“Elating.” —Guernica

“Tom Bissell is at his best in this terrific collection.” —Geoff Dyer

“Every one of Bissell’s pieces is like some great, transfixing documentary you stumble on while channel-surfing late at night—something you feel, in that moment, a kind of gratitude toward for redeeming your sleeplessness. Considered alongside his fiction, this new collection makes clear that Tom Bissell is one of our most interesting and ambitious writers.” —John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead

“Bissell (Extra Lives) peels back the layers of what it means to create and the toll creation often takes on its practitioners…. Never pedantic or self-congratulatory, Bissell says that he never set out to write nonfiction, and perhaps it’s this backdoor approach that makes his observations on craft and the many avenues that lead to the written word all the more powerful.” —Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review)

“A whip-smart, occasionally pugnacious collection of essays on culture from a wide-ranging critic….Bissell can tear into his subjects with a ferocity and brutal wit that recalls Dwight Macdonald…Stellar cultural writing—Bissell has the knowledge and wit to earn his provocations.” —Kirkus (Starred Review)

“Bissell’s essays are brutally honest, thoughtful and entertaining to the nth degree.” —Portland Book Review

“Entertaining, informative and exquisitely readable.” —Shelf Awareness

“Full of beauty.” —The Cleveland Plain Dealer