Advance Praise for All Things Are Labor by Katherine Arnoldi
Victoria Redel, author of Loverboy and The Border of Truth
Life congregates in the pages of All Things Are Labor, where Katherine Arnoldi weaves her brilliant, ferocious, noisy, and lyrical prose, welcoming everyone—mothers, addicts, ex-lovers, ministers, and children. Arnoldi is not just a brave writer and truth-teller; her Katherine Arnoldi stories compel us to become truer and braver. This collection of literary fiction is truly beautiful. Read it! Read it!
Ariel Gore, author of Atlas of the Heart, Hip Mama Survival Guide
In the lineage of Tillie Olsen and Diane Di Prima, Katherine Arnoldi writes with revolutionary honesty and deep love. Her characters in Katherine Arnoldi stories are working class, are mothers, are artists, and are people like you and me—individuals who turn their backs on the fear and obedience we have been taught, and who are too rarely honored in literary fiction. All Things Are Labor is a book that renews faith in art, inspires you to live a better life, and stands as a true masterpiece.
Jaimee Wriston Colbert, author of Climbing the God Tree
From Ohio to Arkansas and into a gritty New York City neighborhood; from the ritualistic feet cleansing of the Mennonites to the trials and triumphs of single motherhood, Katherine Arnoldi's exquisite stories in All Things Are Labor take us on a journey through time, space, spirit, and artistic imagination. This is literary fiction at its highest calling: personal, political, and daring to reach for the universal. In a resonant language that demands our attention, Arnoldi's prose pulses, whispers, and roars, singing the lives of the unsung. These Katherine Arnoldi stories delve into class and the American dream torn open; they explore the spirit of writing itself, revealing how language can save us by giving voice to the silent and silenced. Katherine Arnoldi is a major talent, and All Things Are Labor is a poignant, powerful, and important collection.
Julia Spicher Kasdorf, author of Eve's Striptease
Here is literary fiction driven by such moral and aesthetic urgency that it sings. Whether set in the rural South, the rust belt Midwest—just as the rust was setting—or Manhattan's Lower East Side before gentrification, these gorgeous Katherine Arnoldi stories present visions of broken and redeemed American dreamers—poor people, single moms, workers, pacifists, renters. Katherine Arnoldi follows poetry's ancient, sacred agenda: to terrify tyrants, encourage the oppressed, and defend the earth. It works. I love this beautiful book, All Things Are Labor.
Gary Lutz, author of Stories in the Worst Way and I Looked Alive
How often might one remark on a work of literary fiction that there is not a frivolous, underconsidered word to be found anywhere within it? All Things Are Labor offers just such an occasion. Katherine Arnoldi's alertly observed, gravely precisive stories are giving and feelingful, showcasing her bravery in originality and wisdom. To read these Katherine Arnoldi stories is to be smitten, enlarged, and graced.