A FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR, A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK, A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY ESQUIRE AND THE KANSAS CITY STAR.
“A riveting, honest and unvarnished voice that sounds like no one else’s.”– Los Angeles Times
“Repeatedly nails the fragile braggadocio of the modern American male.... Each story takes on a memorable life of its own, thanks to Klam’s...ability to find the perfect word or phrase.”
–San Francisco Chronicle
“A knockout.”–Portland Oregonian
"Unnervingly dead-on." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A good writer creates characters whose motives and emotions reflect our own dark secrets. A great writer makes us wonder about our life choices; we squirm as if our own lives were the subject of the book...[Klam] has an uncanny knack for crystallizing the truth about relationships." -- USA Today
“Remarkable…. Klam’s prose is an ongoing series of unexpected outbursts… rendered in agile sentences that turn on a dime, from sweetness to obscenity, from comedy to cruelty." -- Los Angeles Times
"Klam doesn’t so much write stories as compose fantastic variations on a theme…the characters are so true, so familiar…and then there’s Klam’s writing, a gift…Buy it…You never forget your first Klam.” -- Philadelphia Inquirer
“The first piece of Matthew Klam’s fiction I ever read was so good I almost passed out…I can only compare Matthew’s writing to long letters from male best friends—the kind replete with matter-of-fact , naked, sometimes vulgar details about life, love and women.” -- Jane Magazine
“A smart, absorbing collection.” -- New York Times Book Review
“Klam's stories are so witty, assured, and damned entertaining…. Klam nails what it means to be a heterosexual man in America today.” -- Austin Chronicle
“Klam's stories are sharp, gorgeous, and clean as a whistle” -- LA Weekly
“…Some silliness is necessary just to get through the hard knocks of life. Klam's writing is fresh. He uses foul language, takes chances and gets into the dirty corners most of us would rather hide with a rug. "Sam the Cat" is his first book. It will earn him fans waiting for more.” -- Seattle Times
“Ruthlessly insightful…Klam has a major bead on women.” -- Harpers Bazaar
“The frank sexuality and emotional honesty of these stories originally sparked a debate at the New Yorker about whether they were fit to be published in that august magazine. Luckily for us all, wiser heads prevailed. This collection is a treasure.” — Washington Times
“Funny, surprising and often fearless, these stories mark a strong debut, and promise better things ahead.”-- The San Diego Union-Tribune
"There are a lot of writers out there who think that to be honest about sex one has to be dark and brutal and mean. Klam proves that the truth, even if unvarnished, is more nuanced than four-letter words (or the seven-letter gerundial forms thereof). His stories, about my friends (I am almost sure they are about my friends), pierce and leap, are always bitingly funny, and are so, so alive. Alive. Good lord. I hope everyone reads this goddamn book, because Klam is telling the truth while almost no one else is." -- Dave Eggers