Pat Lynch's work, with its astute social consciousness and reporter's sharp eye, tunes us in: to language with its revelations and betrayals, to subtexts, to nuance, to irony. Her characters engage us emotionally; her stories peel away the layers with humor and great humanity. Lynch is funny the way that Lear's fool is funny: she tells the truth. She is (as the teenage Dustin Blake would say in "Hand-Me-Downs") a "hella good" writer. -Susan Kelly-DeWitt, author of The Fortunate Islands Pat Lynch's work is a pleasure, especially if we define pleasure as delivering a world and a sensibility toward it that always rings true. Her most interesting characters are outsiders, people who find ways to live (and sometimes prevail) both inside and on the margins of society. She has a fine ear for their language, and a complicated sympathy for the situations she places them in. -Stephen Dunn, author of nineteen books of poetry and prose, including Different Hours, winner of the Pulitzer Prize