The Toronto Star has called Willem de Kooning’s Paintbrush one of the five finest collections published in the last few month. Here’s the write-up. I do like that she finds the stories quixotic:

“The men and women who inhabit Kerry Lee Powell’s vivid and quixotic stories are often grasping the fringe — strippers, bullies, drunks, addicts and outsiders of all ages. Even when her characters are holding it together, their lives are interestingly off-kilter. In the title story, a relationship goes off the rails during a vacation to L.A., when he starts talking in weird voices, she endures a hair-raising roller-coaster ride and he is assaulted in the LAX departure lounge. These 15 stories represent the New Brunswick writer’s first story collection; singly, several of them have been awarded prizes and praise in recent years — and this collection is on the longlist for the 2016 Giller Prize.”