Description:
Twelve short stories -- half set in Midwestern small towns, half set abroad -- in which characters have found themselves in lives they didn't expect and struggle to choose between escape or making peace with their lots.
Brief description: Kevin Revolinski was born and raised in Wisconsin, but then set loose upon the world, traveling to more than 75 countries and founding The Mad Traveler website. Stealing Away, winner of a 2021 PenCraft Book Award, is his first collection of stories, partly set in the Midwest, partly abroad. He is the author of 15 other books, including Wisconsin's Best Beer Guide, Backroads & Byways Wisconsin, Best Tent Camping Wisconsin, and The Yogurt Man Cometh: Tales of an American Teacher in Turkey. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Sydney Morning Herald. A frequent guest on Wisconsin Public Radio, he lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
Review Quotes:
Editor's Pick "An enthralling, empathetic collection of stories about attempting to make peace with the past while facing uncertain futures ...rich with immersive description and offering fresh insights on familiar themes, including the way trauma and a lack of genuine connection can change people."
- Publishers Weekly's BookLife
"STEALING AWAY is a lush, shimmering collection, at once globe-trotting and far-afield, and also somehow as intimate and quotidian as any small hometown. Revolinski, an accomplished non-fiction writer, proves with this book that he has incredible range, wisdom, and empathy. I raced through this collection of short stories and can't wait to read more of Revolinski's fiction. A fantastic debut."
- Nickolas Butler, author of Shotgun Lovesongs and Little Faith
"With the insight of a world traveler and the heart of a kind Midwestern neighbor, Revolinski's dark, engrossing stories find flickers of hope in a disorienting world. [He has] a knack for realistic dialogue and an empathetic heart for Midwestern folks on the harder edge of 'working class.'"
- J. Ryan Stradal, author of The Lager Queen of Minnesota
"At last, a book that gets the Midwest right, complete with houses containing furniture bought at St. Vincent de Paul, both interstates and tiny country backroads, Wal-marts, and gravel driveways. Author Kevin Revolinski has a nice touch with description, and whatever scene he drops his reader into (and the locations here are not exclusively in the Midwest), you feel like you are really there... I love Revolinski's way of writing female characters, which doesn't belittle them or simply make them objects to look at, but truly makes them fleshed-out human characters with not always predictable motives and actions of their own."
- Sarah Cords, Citizen Reader author of Bingeworthy British Television