"Masterful . . . Each [story] is a miniature demonstration of why his remarkable novel The Orphan Master's Son won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for fiction."--The Washington Post
"[Adam Johnson] is always perceptive and brave; his lines always sing and strut and sizzle and hush and wash and blaze over the reader."--The New York Times Book Review
"Superb . . . explosive."--The Wall Street Journal
"Remarkable . . . the best short story collection since Tenth of December . . . Johnson is one of America's greatest living writers."--The Huffington Post
"Haunting, harrowing . . . Johnson's writing is as rich in compassion as it is in invention, and that rare combination makes Fortune Smiles worth treasuring."--USA Today
"Fortune Smiles [blends] exotic scenarios, morally compromised characters, high-wire action, rigorously limber prose, dense thickets of emotion, and, most critically, our current techno-moment."--The Boston Globe
"Johnson's boundary-pushing stories make for exhilarating reading."--San Francisco Chronicle
"Entrancing."--O: The Oprah Magazine
"One of the most original and compelling voices in contemporary American fiction."--Entertainment Weekly
"Johnson packs more voice in his stories than most authors do in a novel."--Esquire
"Stunning . . . Johnson is a writer of uncanny insight and compassion and Fortune Smiles is a wise, poignant and important book. It should not be missed."--Toronto Star
"The best stories stretch well beyond their first and last words. They're more than the opening scene; they invite the reader to imagine what came before and what will come after. They're alive and they're limitless. That's exactly what the best stories in Fortune Smiles are like."--NPR
"[A] bold and deeply wise collection."--BuzzFeed
"Even as Johnson's subject matter bends genre is a way that is assertively contemporary, much of his prose is classically beautiful. . . . The speculative fiction of Margaret Atwood and David Mitchell, which also trade in inherited traumas and personal resilience, come to mind, as do George Saunders' darkly satiric visions of near-future America."--The New Republic
"Transfixing . . . The collection amply confirms Johnson's daring and talent."--The Oregonian
"Excellent."--Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Johnson has a rare combination of inventiveness, intellectual pyrotechnics and emotional sophistication. . . . These stories are treasures."--BBC
"Adam Johnson returns with this riveting collection of short stories, each reflecting the darkly imagined, slightly surreal point of view that animated his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Orphan Master's Son. . . . He's a compelling writer, in any form."--San Jose Mercury-News
"Startlingly, blazingly original."--BookPage
"[Adam Johnson] serves up six sinewy stories that shock and surprise in his edgy, inviting Fortune Smiles. . . . [They're] compulsively readable tales about characters whose lives are largely ignored, undervalued, or simply uncharted and whose voices we seldom hear."--Elle
"The stories in Fortune Smiles fizz with imagination, miniature worlds exploding onto the page. Adam Johnson's prose is so pared-down, like the setting for precious stones, he gives us just what's necessary to let the facets sparkle, without distraction. I loved this book!"--M. L. Stedman, New York Times bestselling author of The Light Between Oceans
"How do you follow a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel? For [Adam] Johnson, the answer is a story collection, and the tales are hefty and memorable. . . . In the title story, two North Korean criminals adjust to post-defection life in South Korea. . . . Often funny, even when they're wrenchingly sad, the stories provide one of the truest satisfactions of reading: the opportunity to sink into worlds we otherwise would know little or nothing about."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A half-dozen sometimes Carver-esque yarns that find more-or-less ordinary people facing extraordinary challenges and somehow holding up. Tragedy is always close to the surface in Johnson's work--with tragicomic layerings. . . . Bittersweet, elegant, full of hard-won wisdom: this is no ordinary book, either."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
