Brief Encounters with Che Guevara

* Exceptional ... Each of these eight stories is as rich as a novel ... Heartbreaking, absurd, deftly drawn New York Times * Fountain has the storytelling gifts to bring the world home to us and a moral compass set to true north -- Gary Shteyngart * Brave, intelligent fiction Independent on Sunday * The work of a very talented writer who is keenly engaged with analysing American identity in the wider world... Beyond the pleasures of Fountain's vivid image-making and fluent storytelling, his collection's great accomplishment is the depth of reality it gives the foreign settings -- Chris Power Guardian * It is such an unexpected joy, in this age of introspection, to discover an American writer with a global outlook -- Jim Crace, Author Of Being Dead * Fountain writes with sparkle and dark humour Daily Express * In this first collection the author brings the virtuosity of Greene and le Carre to tales of foreign adventures Boston Globe * Impeccable ... an heir to Paul Theroux Kirkus Reviews * A collection of stories dealing with moral choices, with the complexity of what being decent can mean ... It's funny. And human. There's no pretense or cleverness - it's just a beautiful book Boston Globe * Fountain prowls similar turf to that of Tom Bissell, Gary Shteyngart and even early Thomas Pynchon ... an impressive performance from an author with a gift for reaching into the past and producing something compelling and new Los Angeles Times Book Review * Ben Fountain writes the kind of stories that Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene used to write ... full of complex adventure and off-balance humour San Diego Union-Tribune * [Fountain] offers pointed prose, nimble revelation . . [and] a rueful generosity towards a string of well-intentioned bumblers Philadelphia Inquirer