Recent Press Cov­er­age for Ladies and Gentlemen

• The Scots­man

  Jan­u­ary 29, 2012
  There’s some­thing reward­ing about reach­ing the twist in Futures, the first in this book of short sto­ries by Adam Ross. We know a twist is com­ing, but there’s a nig­gling sense that Ross might just leave things open to inter­pre­ta­tion… Read More

• The Guardian

  Jan­u­ary 14, 2012
  Adam Ross wears his moral com­pass on his sleeve in these short sto­ries, writ­ten at the same time as his debut novel… Read More

• Three Guys One Book

  Decem­ber 13, 2011
  I read Mr. Peanut so early, that the man­u­script pages were still warm from the printer in the editor’s office. I began wor­ship­ing Adam Ross as soon as I fin­ished it, and I wasn’t alone. Then he deliv­ered… Read More

• Chap­ter 16

  Decem­ber 12, 2011
  Crit­ics like to com­pare Nashville nov­el­ist Adam Ross to other writ­ers, and not to your aver­age, every­day, ordi­nary writ­ers, either. Per­haps it’s inevitable that Ross, who is the author of Mr. Peanut (Knopf, 2010) and Ladies and Gen­tle­men (Knopf, 2011), should inspire… Read More

• The List

  Decem­ber 12, 2011
  In spite of the dark, com­i­cally cruel note struck by this short story col­lec­tion, Ladies and Gen­tle­men makes sur­pris­ingly quick and easy read­ing. As with his 2010 debut novel, Mr. Peanut, Adam Ross suf­fuses his prose with com­pelling intrigue and off­beat humour. But these seven tales feel more… Read More

• Annis­ton Star

  Sep­tem­ber 23, 2011
  Adam Ross con­tin­ues to astound, just as he did in last year’s Mr. Peanut, which remains as witty and dis­com­fit­ing a mod­ern novel as read­ers are likely to find. Ladies and Gen­tle­men is a col­lec­tion of seven sto­ries that illu­mi­nate the utter pre­car­i­ous­ness of liv­ing, sto­ries that remind us of a dark truth that many of us are leery of: The truth that most things just hap­pen, that there is no cos­mic plan. Read More

• Times Free Press

  August 21st, 2011
  Life con­stantly presents a series of choices, but it could be argued we can­not be cer­tain whether we make our deci­sions or our deci­sions make us. Adam Ross slyly approaches many ver­sions of this conun­drum with trade­mark dark humor in Ladies and Gen­tle­men… Read More

• The Shelf Life (Com­mer­cial Appeal)

  August 17, 2011
  Among the most vul­ner­a­ble souls in the adult world are out-of-work job seek­ers, peo­ple reduced to ask­ing indif­fer­ent strangers not just for oppor­tu­nity, but sal­va­tion. Adam Ross’s “Ladies and Gen­tle­men” (Knopf, $25.95) begins with a story called “Futures,” in which a needy job appli­cant is over-thinking every move—should he get a soft drink while he’s wait­ing to be called in and risk burp­ing mid-interview?—and tensely sur­vey­ing the other two com­peti­tors in the recep­tion area, one of whom sud­denly leaves, appar­ently too ner­vous to go through with the pro­ce­dure. Read More

• New York Times Sun­day Book Review

  July 22, 2011
  Adam Ross’s first novel, “Mr. Peanut,” which came out last year, show­cased blaz­ingly orig­i­nal work by a writer whose influ­ences ranged from Ray­mond Chan­dler to Italo Calvino. His sec­ond book, a col­lec­tion of sto­ries, con­firms the promise of his first. “Ladies and Gen­tle­men” is clever in all the right ways, even while pay­ing homage to the most tra­di­tional of forms. Read More

• The Barnes and Noble Review

  July 15, 2011
  Cru­elty comes in all kinds of col­ors. There’s blithe cru­elty that makes light of itself. Gross cru­elty that makes no excuses for itself. Passive-aggressive cru­elty (which is really just aggres­sive cru­elty with­out the courage to admit it). And the coup de cru­elty: care­less, casual cru­elty that cuts so finely it barely leaves a sur­face wound. But beneath the sur­face, the dam­age can be deep indeed. Read More

• Port­land Mercury

  July 7, 2011
  After the suc­cess of his debut novel Mr. Peanut, writer Adam Ross turned his atten­tion to the short story—because appar­ently it is not enough for this man’s lit­er­ary ambi­tions to achieve thump­ing suc­cess in only one form. Read More

• Chap­ter 16

  July 5, 2011
  Read­ers who ven­ture into Ladies and Gen­tle­men, Adam Ross’s new col­lec­tion of short sto­ries, can’t say they weren’t warned: the title alone sug­gests boys and girls behav­ing badly. (Is that prim phrase ever used uniron­i­cally any­more?) But just in case any­one is inclined to hope the naugh­ti­ness will be light­hearted, Ross has tacked on an omi­nous epi­graph from George Eliot: “Cru­elty, like every other vice, requires no motive out­side of itself; it only requires oppor­tu­nity.” Add to those sig­ni­fiers the fact that Ross is the author of Mr. Peanut, a widely acclaimed novel that Stephen King called “the most riv­et­ing look at the dark side of mar­riage since Who’s Afraid of Vir­ginia Wolf?,” and any reader should know there will be plenty of ugli­ness within. Read More

• SFGate

  July 3, 2011
  Adam Ross is clearly in love with sto­ry­telling and the power of sto­ries. And while that may seem like a fairly obvi­ous obser­va­tion to make about a fic­tion writer, all too often authors of short fic­tion seem will­ing — in their quest for sub­tle char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and that elu­sive, quiet “moment of mean­ing” — to place sec­ond­hand impor­tance on plot, as if giv­ing read­ers a rea­son to eagerly turn the page is some­how beneath them. Read More

• The Colum­bus Dispatch

  June 26, 2011
  The short sto­ries of Adam Ross set off the nar­ra­tive equiv­a­lent of ear­worms, those bits of song that get stuck in a listener’s head. Ross’ sto­ries, enter­tain­ing and even slick on the sur­face, have trou­bling under­cur­rents that drag the reader out into uncharted waters… Read More

• The Daily

  June 26, 2011
  There is noth­ing slight about short sto­ries apart from their length — think of Flan­nery O’Connor, Lydia Davis or Stephen Mill­hauser, all of whom rou­tinely wal­lop read­ers in under a dozen pages. Yet this genre of fic­tion is con­sis­tently under­val­ued: an “appe­tizer,” as a recent NPR piece described the form. More often, a short story col­lec­tion pre­cedes a novel, whose duty, invari­ably, is to be great — or bet­ter still: Great. But per­haps the short story has been embold­ened by its posi­tion on the side­lines… Read More

• The New York Times

  June 20, 2011
  [The] sto­ries in this vol­ume are old-fashioned, almost O. Hen­ryesque tales that point up … Mr. Ross’s extra­or­di­nary gifts as a writer. Not only does Mr. Ross pos­sess glit­ter­ing pow­ers of descrip­tion and a heat-seeking eye for emo­tional and phys­i­cal detail, but he’s also able to cap­ture the way peo­ple talk today with flu­ency and panache… Read More

• The Boston Globe

  June 19, 2011
  What makes [Ladies and Gen­tle­men] elec­tri­fy­ing is the author’s knack for lur­ing his char­ac­ters into emo­tional danger…He has man­aged to wed the mas­ter­ful plot­ting of Ray­mond Chan­dler with the exquis­ite char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of Ray­mond Carver, to prove once and for all that exhibit­ing a deep empa­thy for your char­ac­ters deep­ens the thrill as they, and we, bar­rel toward their fates… Read More

• South­ern Lit­er­ary Review

  June 16, 2011
  Known for his abil­ity to nav­i­gate dif­fi­cult human rela­tion­ships in Mr. Peanut, Ross does it again here, with a mod­ern edgi­ness that rings true…He dips our feet into uncom­fort­able waters and makes us face, with clar­ity, the hor­rific things we do to one another. Ross is no doubt one of the most bril­liant writ­ers of our time… Read More

• Kirkus Reviews

  May 1, 2011
  Fol­low­ing his daz­zling debut, Ross drops seven more doses of dis­qui­et­ing fears and mis­lead­ing hopes… Read More