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Some of the praise for The Samaritan is captured below, and I hope they don't regret the kind words when the new version releases.
Can't wait for 2014? Check out some of my stories.
Praise for The Samaritan
Fred Venturini is an awesomely talented writer,
and he proves it on every page of The Samaritan. Stretching artfully from the
shabbiness of life in a small Illinois town to the glitter and greed of
Hollywood, this first novel about a shy, emotionally damaged loser with a
bizarre but coveted ability to regenerate his vital parts is one of the most
engaging and ultimately satisfying that I've had the pleasure to read in a long
time.—Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff
Reading this was like finding
an autobiography I forgot I’d written. Like Venturini had access to all my
secret thoughts. It was strange and wonderful, and I’d pay to do it
again.—Stephen Graham Jones, author of It Came from Del Rio
The Samaritan gives
those of us who love well-crafted offbeat literature a reason to
cheer.—Margaret Brown, Shelf Unbound
Fred Venturini’s
writing is incredibly captivating and never misses a beat. The flow of his
prose softly lulls and embraces the reader while hurtling them toward the inescapable
train wreck of life’s manic ups and downs. With a style so complex in its
simplicity and so pleasurable to read, The Samaritan fuels a reader’s desire to
explore much more of Fred Venturini.—Renee C. Fountain, New York Journal of
Books
The Samaritan is the sort of debut that catches
a reader off-guard. It lures you in with one thing then plays bait and switch,
giving you something more than you could have ever expected, a perfect mix of
disturbing and uplifting.—Erik Smetana, founding editor, Stymie Magazine
Forget
trying to catch your breath—just buckle your seatbelt and plant yourself where
you can dive into The Samaritan without looking up. A gritty novel that blends
boys and bravado, lust and loss, hope and hate, baseball, reality TV, and a broadband
of the bizarre, The Samaritan is gripping well beyond the last word.—Nancy L.
Baumann, Stonebrook Publishing
It’s not for the squeamish, nor the faint of
heart. But if you are neither of those, don’t miss it! Explicit, furious and
sensational with tight, impressive writing, and lines and phrases that I
suspect will linger for me, all moving a fantastical plot made believable by
its humanity. It’s about loss, regret, guilt and loneliness. It’s about the
illusion of healing. It’s about hope, when by all rights, there should be none.
It’s about giving up and starting over. Regeneration, indeed. If only for the
soul.—Regina Till, St. Louis author
The Samaritan blends memoir and Joe R.
Lansdale buddy action with Chuck Palahniuk’s razor wit, but with more humanity
and less nihilism and misanthropy. Engaging, funny, and
intelligent.—Jacob Gustafson, Toxic Graveyard
The Samaritan does what too few
novels these days are able to do—combine character and story into a thought
provoking and highly entertaining read. Venturini has created a world that
envelops, suspends disbelief, and most importantly rivets an emotional
connection between character and reader. It’s a gripping read.—Josh Covington,
author of In Search of Monsters
