"Xhenet Aliu's stories evoke with fierceness and a resilient compassion what it means to be disadvantaged and self-destructive, her characters negotiating the kind of homes in which your bed and your mother might be missing, or in which your husband might be raising venomous snakes in your bedroom closet. Her protagonists live at that intersection of the ethnically despised and the economically demolished, but they're not ready to quit, and they never stop believing that everyone, everywhere, is entitled to a little something special."-Jim Shepard, author of You Think That's Bad -- Jim Shepard "There is a lot of the body in these stories: stink and rot and perfume and dead skin. Often out of control and goofy, Domesticated Wild Things is also extremely funny and mordant. The wild energy of Aliu's diction mocks and illuminates the English language."-Sherman Alexie, author of Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories -- Sherman Alexie "Offering sharp dialogue and a sense of the absurd, the book's 11 stories evoke compassion rather than pity for this cast of wretched souls. Humorous and vibrant."-Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly "Aliu's colorful characters, both resilient yet troubled, bolster the 11 spirited tales."-Leah Strauss, Booklist Online -- Leah Strauss Booklist Online "Filled with both humor and compassion these original stories reflect the bog which sucks the hard up and those living on the edge deeper into the quicksand of life... The stories will appeal to the adolescents and the bewildered young who will recognize their own ruminations so aptly expressed by the emotionally tortured characters."-Aron Row, San Francisco Book Review -- Aron Row San Francisco Book Review "This may not be the Connecticut you thought you knew, but I, for one, am grateful to see those velvet curtains drawn aside."-Jennifer Kelly, Center For Literary Publishing -- Jennifer Kelly Center For Literary Publishing
