Echoing a narrative line that includes Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller, William Giraldi's Busy Monsters has been hailed as one of the most exciting fiction debuts in years. Penned with a linguistic bravado that explores the diaphanous line between fiction and fact, this very funny, very inventive début novel (The New Yorker) has at last revived the great American picaresque tradition. Comedy, satire, farce, language. [A] release from the familiar and banal . has the kind of agenda that gives heft to the picaresque novels from which it is derived.-New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice Wonderful. Singular and arresting . filled with quirky turns of phrase, unexpected literary and cultural allusions, self-aware asides, and highfalutin word choices that would make Roget swell with pride.

-Salon [A] riotous debut novel.-Publishers Weekly, starred review A brilliant first novel that may well be in the running for 2011 literary awards.-Library Journal, starred review.