DAREN DEAN
Set in the cities, towns, and hamlets all over the midwest and points south, his stories defy easy generalizations in tone, voice, and genre. Dean’s characters are often flawed, damaged, brutally real, which prompted Robert Olen Butler to write, “Dean writes like the laureate of fallen angels.” He lays bear his character’s often contrarian hearts on the page. In the title story, a boy learns to fight with his fists and cry with his heart. In “Faith Baby” an electrician is an addict’s salvation. In “Captain Marvel Goes Down in Gigolo Hall of Fame” a middle aged man searches for a sugar mama in a nursing home and gets more than he bargained for. In “Fever” the death of a child gauges the temperature of a marriage. Clyde Edgerton wrote, “His fiction . . . is just twisted enough to hold a reader tight.” These stories burn with rage, a fever-pitch hilarity, and often tragedy. His people are real and preoccupied with their relentless pursuit of imperfection just like the best of us.
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Praise
"Thank goodness Daren Dean has filled in the giant hole Larry Brown left behind. The stories in I’ll Still Be Here Long After You’re Gone provide us with unforgettable blue-collar protagonists fighting for—or against—respect, love, and justice. I pulled for these characters, scene after scene, in their roadside bars, cheap motels, country churches, trailer camps, even outside the burning love-nest of an ex-spouse. Dean’s stories are gritty, honest, and beautiful. I want more, more, more." -George Singleton, author of Staff Picks
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"Daren Dean's story collection I'll Still Be Here Long After You're Gone is, in a single word, harrowing-- in the truest sense. Dean's stories dig deep, churning up the psyche of his reader, bringing to the surface a darker side of humanity that may make us flinch, but never look away. Teaming with desperate characters forced into brutal choices, ratty motels, smoky bars, fire, storms, the wrath of God and the sweetness of the Holy Ghost-- this short story collection feels like it was made for me, a lover of authentic, rural noir. Country as hell, I'd have to say that Daren Dean gives Daniel Woodrell a run for his money and then some." -Steph Post, the author of Miraculum, Lightwood, Walk in the Fire, and A Tree Born Crooked
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"Dean lulls you into a dream state that holds your head under water just long enough you think you might actually drown, and then he brings you up for air. And yes there is whisky in our cups, and maybe a few folks have wandered off to make mistakes in the woods and someone will say the stupid thing that starts a fight but for now we are in good hands— hypnotized in the moment. And the bard is speaking to us of our own kin, the beautiful broken people we know so well but too often forget."—Michael Garriga, author of The Book of Duels
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"Tense as a closed fist and tender-hearted as a schoolboy, Daren Dean’s prose takes an unflinching look at the greater devils of our nature. And yet his words maintain a soft spot for those fighting back against the encroaching darkness."--The Columbia Tribune
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