Pu-239 and Other Russian Fantasies

“Thirst is a book to give to people who piss and moan about the unpromising future of American fiction, and Ken Kalfus is an important writer in every sense of ‘important.’ There are hip, funny writers, and there are smart, technically innovative writers, and there are wise, moving, and profound writers. Kalfus is all these at once, and the stories in Thirst manage simultaneously to delight, impress, provoke, and redeem. Three cheers and then some.”

—David Foster Wallace

“Kalfus’s stories are genuinely magical, that is, the transformations they work are real, not illusions. Thirst is a collection steeped in wonder.”

—Stuart Dybek

“Kalfus reminds us that the short story is not an easily contained form, a single thing done in a single way.”

—New York Times Book Review

“Thirst eludes all attempts at categorization save this one: It’s the most accomplished first book I’ve read all year.”

—Washington Post

“Kalfus unerringly recognizes the comedy inherent in our quandaries of knowing and being, and suggests that laughter best quenches existential thirst.”

—Philadelphia Inquirer