"D'Agata writes masterful sentences, in all forms. [He is] adept at collage, found poetry, paragraphs long and short, lists, characterization, direct quotes, the prose poem, fragments, spoffing . . . D'Agata hovers like a moth around the sparks created where the known and unknown rub against each other." --Ruminator Review

"[Halls of Fame] is a succession of 'lyric essays'--a form invented by D'Agata himself--sentences strung like a spiderweb over a subject: the people who flock to Hoover Dam, the damned who wander around and work in Las Vegas, people who know we have captive space aliens in New Mexico. Somehow D'Agata manages never to condescend . . . D'Agata is an alchemist who changes trash into pure gold. Both he and [David] Markson are 'experimental' writers who defy all we know and dread about experimental writing: they are readable." --Guy Davenport, Harper's

"A daring, utterly original book by a young writer of rare intelligence and artistry . . . With wit and finesse, and writing that's as much poetry as it is prose, D'Agata is redefining the modern American essay." --Annie Dillard

"John D'Agata is pushing the envelope of the modern American essay. A maximalist's intellectual curiosity collides with a minimalist's austere lyricism to produce results that are novel, intriguing, and haunting." --Phillip Lopate

"John D'Agata's journey through genres, the American landscape, the history of thought, and the history of lyric action--his beautifully agonized struggle between sentence and line--and his resulting genuinely fresh conversation with silence--makes for stunning and original work." --Jorie Graham