About the Book
Poetry / Fiction / Art / Aphorisms. American Homes incorporates poetry, prose, and various schematic devices, including dozens of illustrations by the artist Jacob Heustis, to create a cracked narrative of the domestic spaces we inhabit.
“You want to know what I think about Ryan Ridge, the writer, the author of this great book in your hands, you there, holding this book, kind of figuring, well, should I buy it or shouldn’t I: well good, I’ll tell you about Ryan Ridge. He is the single greatest should-be-already-known-by-everyone young writer of genius, of sparkling drugged handsome funny—and if you can be funny, like this guy funny, knock yourself out, if you can be this smart and funny, but you’re probably getting sort of tired already just trying to imagine being the kind of funny this guy is funny, not easy funny, genius funny, the kind to make you laugh, make you just GD tickled how funny he is, clever, historically playful, formally inventive, big scope, firework, Brautigan, you know, bred with say Vonnegut, listen, I’m getting a bit famished here, trying to convoke you into getting it, that this guy, Ridge, remember, Ryan Ridge, he is not someone to put the book thereof’s down, I’m saying buy it buy it buy it, and then try like hell after you finish it, in one day, in an afternoon, convexed into it as you will be, rushing through it, swallowing the whole book trying to—once all through it you’ll be wanting more, then try like hell to get a handle on his first book Hunters and Gamblers, after you finish American Homes and then do what I do, and wait your pretty self for the next one to come from Ryan Ridge into your lucky hands.”
—Luke B. Goebel, author of Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours
Cover collage: “Champagne George,” Jacob Heustis
Ryan Ridge is the author of the story collection Hunters & Gamblers, the poetry collection Ox, as well as the chapbooks 22nd Century Man and Hey, it’s America. His work can be found in places like PANK, Salt Hill, Tin House, McSweeney’s Small Chair, FLAUNT Magazine, The Santa Monica Review, Sleepingfish, and elsewhere. A former editor for Faultline Journal of Arts & Letters, he currently serves as a managing editor for Juked. He writes and teaches in Louisville, Kentucky.