I could continuously cite inventions, details, and felt connections that I admire in this collection of four extraordinary novellas. ‘Only connect,’ E. M. Forster says. There are no unconnected elements in this gathering of tales—Madden seamlessly weaves insight, imagination, implication, inflection, and innuendo.”—Allen Wier
"David Madden has long since joined the pantheon of great fiction writers, but in Marble Goddesses and Mortal Flesh, he has outdone himself. By turns hilariously funny and tenderly romantic, his young narrator Lucius Hatfield astounds the reader with both his fearlessness and intelligence, making him unforgettable, and one of the more original and endearing characters ever to grace Southern literature, Indeed, I suspect Marble Goddesses and Mortal Flesh will find itself on many readers' shelves of favorite books as it has on mine, and will be picked up and reread time and time again."—Rosemary Daniell, author of Fatal Flowers: On Sin, Sex and Suicide in the Deep South, and seven other books of poetry and prose
“David Madden has been around the block a time or two (this is his 13th work of fiction), yet he always has a new trick up his sleeve—in this case, a set of four novellas starring one Lucius Hutchfield, a character who might make you think of someone out of Faulkner or Walker Percy or even Melville’s Confidence Man, the kind of hero our mothers warned us against, knowing that we wanted nothing more than to be him. As always, Madden is both wise and winking here. Some people say life’s the thing, but David Madden reminds us that art is always the better choice.”— David Kirby, author of Get Up, Please
“In his thirteenth book, David Madden returns to Lucius Hutchfield, protagonist of Bijou, his early masterpiece, and one of the most unforgettable characters I’ve had the pleasure to meet in fiction. Over the course of these novellas, Madden delivers four distinct episodes from Lucius’s life, spanning late youth to middle age. Marble Goddesses and Mortal Flesh is equal parts comic, heartbreaking, suspenseful, meditative, erotic, romantic, nostalgic, always rich in character and sense of place and masterfully rendered end to end. Just read it. You’ll see what I mean.” —Michael Knight, author of The Typist: A Novel
“Marble Goddesses & Mortal Flesh is a magical blend of memoir and fiction, new and older stories, an exciting epitome of David Madden’s whole career as a narrative writer. We know Madden has had a lifelong love affair with movies and movies stars. For him the romance of the screen is an inspiration for life itself, and for the fictive imagination, along with his lusty memories of growing up in Knoxville, his service in the Merchant Marine, out-conning con men, braiding together tall tales and vivid realism, outrageous comedy, and pursuing the ghost of Jesse James in the North Carolina mountains. Madden is a master Appalachian storyteller, and these four novellas may be his finest work yet.” —Robert Morgan, author of Chasing the North Star
“I’ve always admired David Madden’s work for its keen music and instinct for time and place. These new stories will add and strengthen his reputation as an observer of the enigmatic and the legendary.” —Phil Schultz, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet for Failure
“Marble Goddesses and Mortal Flesh, David Madden’s collection of four linked novellas, is a singular achievement. With the chiseled, nuanced sentences, and marvelous invention we’ve come to expect of him, Madden creates, in Lucius Hutchfield, the narrator of all four tales, a most memorable tour guide. Madden’s mastery of the novella, an often misapprehended and elusive form, is complete – and here I league him with the writers whose craft and precision in the novella I most admire: Katherine Anne Porter, Alan Sillitoe, Jim Harrison and Glenway Wescott.” —Joseph Bathanti, Author of The Life of the World to Come and North Carolina Poet Laureate (2012-2014)
