"I recently reread all eighty-five of Kincaid's 'Talk' stories, and I was surprised by what I found in them--surprised, delighted, and, most of all, embarrassed for my younger self... It's taken me a few years to appreciate that there are times when it's enough for writing, like sleep and sex, to exist just for the pleasure it gives." --Craig Seligman, The Threepenny Review

"From the collection's first piece ... the reader is snared by the simplicity, directness and unvarnished truthfulness of formidable talent already realized." --Margaret Fichtner, Miami Herald

"Fresh, risky, improvisational and hard-to-categorize writing, the fruit of a remarkable understanding between a seasoned editor and a nervy new writer, is rare and precious, and best appreciated here, where each provocative essay plays against the others, no longer anonymous." --Donna Seaman, Chicago Tribune