Battle Born

In Acceleration Hours, Jesse Goolsby relies on well-established literary traditions to provide his unique take on important human themes. Through the tradition of wartime literature, he considers death and faith, pain and anguish, and fear and hope. Through the literature of the West, he explores self-sufficiency, individualism, and survival. In his entirely original and intriguing execution, Goolsby manages to explore these often hard and ugly truths through the lives of his fascinating characters, and he does so in a way that is empathetic without being sentimental." -Caleb Cage, author of Desert Mementos

"Acceleration Hours is a live-wire collection full of characters who aren't afraid to bare their souls. With a deft hand, Goolsby carries us through their struggles at home and away, cementing himself as a powerful new talent in the process." - Sara Novic, author of Girl at War

"Jesse Goolsby's stories cut like knives: brutal and bloody, shocking and thrilling, they profane by telling the truth. Goolsby's thoroughly American characters run from war at home to war abroad; they (we?) are realists and pessimists, the disillusioned and a few of the dangerously deluded. Acceleration Hours should haunt a nation that has for a generation now sent the least among us around the globe to dominate and humiliate the least among Them-all in service of an empire estranged from its ideals. This collection should wake us up; it has the power to change us." -Dan O'Brien, author of War Reporter and The Body of an American