"[Dunn's] collection is a welcome reminder that literature can be not only a showcase for polished, refined sentiment but also an arena in which both reader and writer grapple--with imminent challenges, with their own psyches, with the uncertainty of survival . . . Dunn's pieces have an almost irrepressible kinetic energy."
--Alexandra Kleeman, The New York Times

"Violent, sensual, and at times delightfully off-putting . . . Dunn's provocative and unflinching commitment to black-humor in the face of the taboo is on full display in Near Flesh; this collection is unafraid to be nasty in ways that we don't often get to see anymore."
--Mike Welch, Chicago Review of Books

"[Near Flesh] invites us to take in Dunn's short fiction on its own terms--to examine the collection in direct sunlight, beyond the long shadows of Geek Love and Dunn's lived experience. Happily, the 18 stories gathered here (two-thirds of which have not been previously published) hold up to the scrutiny. Even--especially--at its most grotesque, Dunn's prose has a real verve to it."
--Chelsea Davis, Los Angeles Review of Books

"[The stories] feature all the hallmarks of Dunn's oeuvre: the body as site of both fascination and repulsion; a natural sympathy with misanthropes and the marginalized; dark comedy and outrageous violence; an openness to genres such as sci-fi, horror, and magical realism; and an attitude toward romance that anticipates what we've lately taken to calling heteropessimism . . . Near Flesh sheds welcome new light on Dunn's work and working methods, but the book's greatest value may be to remind us that she wasn't a one-book wonder--that an oeuvre does, in fact, exist."
--Justin Taylor, n+1

"These nineteen pieces . . . capture many of the curiosities, domestic anxieties and derangements that Dunn explored in her other work, often with pitch-black humor. Her characters stick with you: a woman who plans to have sex with robots, a troubled teenager who dreams of meeting aliens, a college student who has a thoroughly disappointing affair with an older poet. Prepare to be unsettled."
--The New York Times

"Dark, funny, and compulsively readable. Even from beyond, [Dunn's] voice still cuts sharp. The collection reminds us why she remains one of Portland's most treasured literary figures: a writer who found beauty in the grotesque, comedy in the horrific, and humanity in the most unlikely of places."
--Brianna Wheeler, Willamette Week

"Dunn gives ugliness a sense of worth, preferring her characters to be interesting and compelling in their ugliness . . . From her work, Dunn's reflected the fear of being trapped in one's circumstances and the unseemly quality of Portland in the 1980s. She responds to this fear, though, with a wink and sigh, daring her audience to understand her."
--Grace Mangali, Street Roots

"Delightfully offbeat . . . Dunn vividly captures her protagonists' attempts to cope with the turbulence of their lives."
--Publishers Weekly

"These sharp-edged, disturbing, often black-humored and unabashedly nasty stories will fascinate Dunn fans."
--Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Katherine Dunn

"Dunn's style is unlike that of anyone living or dead: simultaneously practical and bonkers; lovely and nasty."
--Molly Young, The New York Times Book Review

"An expansive novelist giving voice to American estrangement."
--Michael LaPointe, The Atlantic

"Nobody's sentences heave and breathe like Dunn's do. Her language scintillates and sheds its scales, revealing truths that nobody else dares to utter, or can."
--Karen Russell, author of The Antidote

"Dunn's writing is dynamic and propulsive . . . Her didactic prose surpasses the spare, dispassionate style common among today's novelists. One is never bored."
--Terry Nguyen, Los Angeles Review of Books