a best book of this year
"Remember that time in your life when you didn’t know if you would ever learn how to breathe? No, you knew you were breathing, but you wondered if it would ever feel like it was supposed to. Douglas Martin [Once You Go Back] nails the claustrophobia of growing up, somehow succeeding at delivering an adult’s voice with a child’s awareness, a voice at once aloof and familiar. Martin steers clear of the typical nostalgia in order to convey a loneliness so intimate that even a catalog of deteriorating home life becomes something almost like hope. And, the best part is that he doesn’t fuck it up at the end with some kind of tidy closure – yay, thank you!" - Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
"As for fiction –- again, lots of favorites, by Stacey D'Erasmo (The Sky Below), Douglas A. Martin (Once You Go Back), Peter Gadol (Silver Lake), Vestal McIntyre (Lake Overturn) and Derek McCormack (The Show That Smells). - Richard Labonte
"Martin, who possesses one of the most distinctive younger voices in contemporary gay lit, transcends the familiar with heartbreaking poignancy. His language is spare and evocative, his prose is infused with the compactness of poetry, and his graceful, elliptical narrative evokes painful early years with ferocious precision." (Labonte review)
