"This is a journey of a film, which ends where we couldn’t have imagined it would. A lesson in complexity, pain, fun, and beauty. Karen Black comes off as a worse actress than she is, and Jack Nicholson comes off as a better actor than he is. I think I saw this on VHS in the mid 1980s and then again at the Cinema Village in New York City in 1989. Throughout both viewings, but more so during the second time, I felt: grateful, grateful. This movie keeps on giving. A month or two ago I remembered the scene between Nicholson’s character and the mute father. I’m grateful for that."

"I don’t hesitate to state that no one becomes a great writer without drinking from the spring of fables. Sometimes their influence shows on the surface and at other times it remains hidden inside the story like bones in a body. In this magnificent collection of dark stories, Vollmann — who many consider having written the Great American Novel more than once — proves himself a master storyteller whose pitcher of that fabled water never runs dry. Drawing on sources from the North, The South, The East and the West he takes us on a journey through many last nights on earth and in the worlds beyond."