The elusive blurb

One of the painful things about having a novel published is having to ask people to write "blurbs"--those brief comments that go mainly on the back cover. What it comes down to is you're asking grownups to do homework with a big chunk of required reading. Here are my latest from two very generous people:

Reading Evacuation Plan is akin to unwrapping a series of small perfectly-chosen presents. Both human and humane, The book resembles a modern Spoon River Anthology with its vivid, touching glimpses into the lives of those in and around a hospice.

-- Tim McCanlies, writer/director Secondhand Lions, writer The Iron Giant

Joe O'Connell's Evacuation Plan--this Decameron of the hospice--encompasses a paradox. Death comes for everyone, but death is the only human universal because everyone dies, and witnesses dying, with private, unspeakable shame. Yet there are a few minutes left to speak. As
people die, they tell stories which spawn new stories, which remind us that death is agony, a violent struggle, but so is living.

-- Debra Monroe, Flannery O'Connor Award winning author of Newfangled and Shambles