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Curtis Dawkins grew up in rural Illinois and earned an MFA in fiction writing at Western Michigan University. He has struggled with alcohol and substance abuse through most of his life and, during a botched robbery, killed a man on Halloween 2004. Since late 2005, he's been serving a life sentence, with no possibility of parole, in various prisons throughout Michigan. He has three children with his partner, Kim, who is a writing professor living in Portland, Oregon.A debut collection that is compelling and real . . . Remarkable for its modesty, realism and humanity . . . He has produced a book that is not only moving and genuine, but genuinely important; one that, without resorting to shock tactics, powerfully conveys the perverse inhumanity of mass incarceration
* Guardian *
Dawkins's speciality in his writing is as much the mundanity of prison life as the unexpected . . . An engrossing introduction to a stark universe that can only come as a shock to those who have to navigate it for the first time for real
* Observer *
A dazzling debut . . . The gritty, gripping and grimly comic stories . . . draw the reader in with the sweep of their humanity and empathy
* Telegraph *
In each of his stories, he depicts the gritty reality of life caged up. Often unapologetic and always moving, Dawkins gives voice to a group of people forgotten by society
* New Statesman *
This is an assured and ultimately humane collection . . . The prose is sparse and precise yet brimming with resonance and meaning, and there is a seam of deathly dark humour running through the stories. An impressive and authentic glimpse at a world most of us will thankfully never know
* The Big Issue *
The effect is fascinating, like conveying the wonder of a fable with the force of a fist
* Times Literary Supplement *
The stories in <i>The Graybar Hotel </i>are astonishing, clever and true. It's the best collection I've read in a long, long time
- Roddy Doyle, author of the Booker Prize-winning PADDY CLARKE HA HA HA,
Rarely have I read a book that takes you so vividly into a hinterland at once hellish and humane, brutal and tender. A literary testament to the indomitability of the human spirit and the primacy of the creative act
- John Niven, author of STRAIGHT WHITE MALE,
With his first story collection, <i>The Graybar Hotel</i>, Curtis Dawkins has given noir a new, darker niche . . . furiously funny, full of poetic punches and tinged with a surrealism born of doing time, killing time, despairing over time. He catches the taut rhythms and indigenous argot of inmates, as well as their fragile hopes and febrile dreams
* The Big Issue *
Dawkins writes with emotional clarity and attention to detail<i> </i>
* Observer *