Benioff uses humor and rich characterizations to explore the sometimes thrilling, sometimes pathetic state of the American urban male. Over the course of eight stories, some with an appealing touch of the surreal, we are introduced to a faded football star, soldiers in a Russian winter, a punk rocker, and other young men on the cusp of discovery and loss. As he evokes the various states of agony and pleasurehumiliation, rebellion, camaraderie, and desireBenioff displays a profound understanding of the contemporary male psyche. [Viking Books]
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
This is a superb collection, and it proves that Benioff can handle the long and the short of the fiction game.
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Outstanding
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San Francisco Chronicle David Lazarus
Story collections aren't always high on readers' to-do lists these days. This one should be.
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Outstanding
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Wall Street Journal Stephen Barbara
To these situations Mr. Benioff brings a natural prose style and a subtlety of expression.
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Outstanding
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The Independent Christian House
Two of the stories are the most moving this reviewer has had the misty-eyed pleasure to read in a long time.
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Favorable
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Washington Post Victor LaValle
The successful stories in When The Nines Roll Over are so thoroughly enjoyable that you may not reflect on their acute perceptions until you've put the book down for a while.
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Favorable
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The New York Times Book Review Jeff Turrentine
A smart, protean collection.
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Favorable
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The Onion A.V. Club Scott Tobias
[Benioff] sketch[es] beautifully wrought characters who follow their hearts wherever they lead, which is usually to despair.
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Favorable
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USA Today Anne Stephenson
The book's eight stories are written with both a literary writer's care and a film writer's instinct for courting his readers or viewers. He hooks them, reels them in and does his best to make them happy to be in the boat with him -- until he lets them go a few hours later.
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Favorable
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Booklist Allison Block
A deft stylist who's a notch or two tamer than Chuck Palahniuk and T. C. Boyle, Benioff finds levity amidst the gravity in a world where the simplest of moments can change the course of our lives. [Aug 2004, p.1896]
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Favorable
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Entertainment Weekly Chris Nashawaty
This mostly fantastic collection When the Nines Roll Over kick-starts with the masterful title story, in which a music exec cherry-picks a sexy punk singer for stardom against the wishes of her drummer boyfriend.
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Favorable
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Kirkus Reviews
Technical accomplishment that's matched by a generosity of spirit.
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Mixed
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Los Angeles Times Ben Ehrenreich
But too many of these stories end up feeling as hollow as their protagonists: slick, familiar, flat. [22 Aug 2004]
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