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PRAISE FOR The Standard Grand


"I find few things more hopeful, in these darkening times, than a writer who can stare, unblinking, into the gut-wrenching destruction humans are wreaking upon each other and the earth, and still find shards of humor and humanity. A dash of Coetzee, a dram of DeLillo, but mostly just the complicated compassion of Nicorvo. The Standard Grand is a brutally beautiful novel." � Pam Houston

"Jay Baron Nicorvo hits the sweet spot in The Standard Grand, a novel that delivers the tough and tender, twisting and turning pleasures of classic noir, while paying all due respect to what Terry Southern called Qual Lit. Not since I discovered the work of Daniel Woodrell have I read prose so attuned to the violence that lies beneath that fiction we call Normal Life. Kaleidoscopic in its vision, encompassing in its humanity, here is a novel I wish I could send to Robert Stone." � Scott Spencer

"With profound compassion for his outrageously wonderful characters, Jay Baron Nicorvo brings readers to a defunct and decaying Catskills resort where a ghost platoon of vets � from wars current and past, AWOL and discharged, traumatized and traumatizing alike � are surviving among dangers both natural and human-made. Whether he’s inhabiting the consciousness of a one-eyed cougar, tracking corporate greed and espionage in the energy industry, or describing “achy, inflexible� geriatric sex, he’s doing so with an unflinching eye and an attuned ear. Insanely funny, by turns tragic and, ultimately, redemptive, The Standard Grand is a desperate masterpiece of a debut: honest, epic, constantly surprising, and relentlessly entertaining." � Bonnie Jo Campbell

"Jay Baron Nicorvo is a bracingly original writer and a joy to read." � Dennis Lehane

"The Standard Grand defies categorization, as a novel; its pleasures are those of both the family saga and the government-covert-secrets sort. The reader engages politically, emotionally, and morally, with a page-turning obsession to see what, exactly, could (despite what should) possibly happen next. I welcome such reads, the surprise and satisfaction of encountering a winning and arresting new voice in the world of letters." � Antonya Nelson

“L¾±°ì±ð O'Brien and Stone before him, Nicorvo's language lays bare the sinewy lusts, rattling hopes, and incommunicable fears that are our human machine.â€� â€� T. Geronimo Johnson

"Jay Baron Nicorvo has written an absorbing and unabashedly brilliant first novel. With echoes of Tim O'Brien and Joseph Heller, and the added pleasure of an almost Dickensian plot, he has crafted an appealing, deeply humanistic, yet entirely geopolitical dimension that is all his own. I am in awe of the range of his knowledge, his swift and sure-handed storytelling, and the wonderfully diverse set of characters who live and breathe on these pages. Nicorvo's sentences often have the precision of fine miniatures but his canvas is large, multicultural, contemporary, and magnificent. He is a gifted writer and The Standard Grand is one great gift of a book." � Frederick Reiken

“This novel pops and sears. It picks you up and doesn't let you go until it's finished with its rollicking, fiery story. Nicorvo has produced a masterwork.� � Don Lee

"Jay Baron Nicorvo's The Standard Grand is, from its eye-catching title to the prophetic peal of its last word, a stunning debut performance by a young novelist of extravagant talent. This novel gives readers everything � a gob-smacking plot, language that sings like the angels, and characters as compelling as our best and worst friends and lovers." � Sterling Watson