Remarkable. Intoxicating. Arresting. Poetic. A tale of macho violence and alternative horticulture in a creepy edge-of-the-world setting... puts readers in mind of Denis Johnson’s Already Dead... and Russell Banks’s unbeautiful losers. Rickstad takes his time setting his story in motion, but once he does it’s a powerfully bloody mess. The body count is high, and the violence persuasive. Most remarkable is the evocation of the territory, the gothic tangle of native forest and exotic cash crop that mirrors the characters’ claustrophobic inner landscapes [and] the grimly poetic images scattered throughout, like flashes of submerged lives never quite reeled in.
Harrowing. Absorbing. Unpredictable. Dangerous. By turns bucolic and eerie [Reap] probes the mysteries of growing as plants people and situations twist inexorably in unpredictable, dangerous directions. A progressively more harrowing, absorbing tale.
Transcends the typical. Harrowing. Inevitable.
Rickstad renders dark, often violent characters with such elegance that we will embrace them long after they’ve opted for the choice that is clearly wrong.
A haunting, dark story that seethes with acute human emotion and vivid imagery. Reap’s characters speak volumes [about] absent fathers, family secrets, emotional isolation, violence, and financial hardships. Turning each page is like opening the door to an open field. The dialogue seems to blossom into stark realism, sparse phrasing and authentic accents that would leave any accomplished novelist writhing with jealousy.
The realistic pacing draws the reader into such an extent you feel like an immediate eyewitness.
Riveting. Harrowing. Rickstad’s a blazing talent. I can’t remember when I’ve taken as harrowing or entertaining a journey. There’s a dark humor here, but also a saving wisdom.
— David Huddle, Author, The Story of a Million Years
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A bloody beauty of a debut. A dramatic reminder of the mystery and majesty of the wild places that exist in both man and nature. Reap resonates with unforgettable characters and over the top descriptions. [It] is far more than complex plot. It is characterization.
It is nature and commerce. It illuminates worlds of darkness.
Dangerous. Perilous. Complex. A complex portrait of a group of people whose interlocking fates snap into place with gruesome repercussions and of a boy who stumbles unwittingly into adulthood like a bird dog into a wolf trap.
Truly original. Tremendous. Authentic. Stunningly written.
Wonderful. Rickstad gets it just exactly right. One of the very best new works of fiction to come out of New England in many years.
Rickstad pulls back the veneer of the bucolic wilderness of northern Vermont and finds trouble in paradise... Colorful, marginal, and often violent characters [and] the undertone of violence, desperation, and drug dealing as a way of life underscores the fact that the country joins the inner city in becoming a modern American wasteland.
A hard-edged, quick moving, violent story of maimed and desperate characters. A hard-edged, quick moving, violent story of maimed and desperate characters, tempered by a fine, lyric sensibility and an awareness of place that sings with evocation and authenticity. Rickstad is a deeply compassionate writer, without an ounce of sentimentality; and he is altogether able to make the reader care deeply about his cast and crew, from first to last.
— George Garrett, Author, Death of the Fox |
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