ADVANCE PRAISE

Brian Allen Carr’s brain must be a snarl of firing pistons, sizzling fuses, hoses leaking blood and tequila and hydraulic oil. How else can you explain the twisted machinery of his stories? Each of them a disturbing journey that will thrill and educate you in the sunlit haze of the Texas/Mexico border—and the sometimes subterranean darkness of the human heart.

Benjamin Percy, author of The Wilding and Refresh, Refresh

These stories are everything hardworking – the characters, the scenery, the sentences – all form to build a machine crafted to break hearts along the border. A ridiculously strong first collection.

Shane Jones, author of Light Boxes

Short Bus balances the harshness of characters’ lives with beautiful and precise language, making parched land feel lush.  Carr writes the best kind of stories–stories that only he could have written.

Mary Miller, author of Big World

Brian Allen Carr spins brilliant border stories with a rhythm and beat all his own. Short Bus joins a short list of books that sound like now: I can think only of Matthew Mc Intosh’s Well and Patrick deWitt’s Ablutions that ring with the same 21st century authenticity. At a time when too many voices are touted as original, Carr’s voice truly is.

Larry Fondation, author of Fish, Soap and Bonds and Angry Nights