NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (Editors’ Choice): “Wide-ranging and technically daring… Sharp and satisfying… Brim[ming] with gumption.”
BOSTON GLOBE: “[A] literary feat: a sophomore work of fiction that both highlights [Dorst’s] gifts and extends his range.”
TEXAS MONTHLY: “[A] freewheeling collection….The Surf Guru is great fun, a showpiece that manages to seem worldly and unpretentious at once.”
KIRKUS REVIEWS (Starred review): “[A] varied, inventive collection of stories….Rarely in debut story collections does a writer succeed in showing versatility and range without the book devolving into a miscellany, but Dorst expertly manages the feat…. In this funny, poignant, risk-taking and mostly splendid collection, Dorst confirms the promise of his acclaimed first novel.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: “…[A] mix of lively imagination and love of craft are on display in this excellent collection…. The humanity in Dorst’s characters can break a reader’s heart.”
AUSTIN CHRONICLE: “Electric…astonishing, deeply imagined…no story is like any other story in The Surf Guru.”
BOOKLIST: “[C]onsistently finds the sweet spot between humor and pathos… [A] well-crafted and compulsively readable collection…. Imaginative and compelling.”
THE OREGONIAN: “Dorst writes about the disappointed and the irresponsible from all walks of life with such authority and nuance, such generous spirit and empathy at describing life’s turns of fate…. The Surf Guru is as mixed in tone as it is in spirit, inspiration and subject matter. There’s a true diversity too infrequently found in collections…. [A] delightful and courageous effort that’s well worth the read.”
LOS ANGELES TIMES: “[A] brazen, roiling, confident collection.”
SUITE101.COM: “Dorst seems to channel a sense of doom, a hope for humanity, and a bit of macabre humor in his new short story collection…. [T]he book seems haunted by past authors, but in a happy way; nothing is expected, and everything feels new.”
