Impossible Naked Life

“The energy coursing through Impossible Naked Life is barely contained by the page. Mostly told in quick bursts, these stories pack more sharp images and lines of deep beauty and intensity in four pages than most authors can fit in twenty. Some of the stories are abstract and surreal and others feature small “normal” moments told with such precision that the real world somehow becomes even stranger. The people in these stories will stay with you, and I get a feeling I couldn’t shake them loose even if I tried.”
- Richard Z. Santos, author Trust Me

“I love this book. Whether it’s compassion among cold people, or a bull snake in the grip of a young girl, every story delivers something profound where you don’t expect it. Luke Rolfes has assembled a great collection of funny, strange, closeup looks at the lives of people who are ordinary only on the surface.”
-Robert Long Foreman, author of Weird Pig and I Am Here to Make Friends

“Set in the ‘corn and bean fields of Middle America,’ Luke Rolfes’ Impossible Naked Life achieves the next-to-impossible task of serving up both the droll and the devastating in equal measure. Rolfes’ characters and locales are relatable (HR directors, nosy neighbors, state parks, cul de sacs), but his plot twists transfix and transport. Is there a dead girl at the bottom of the Showbiz Pizza ball pit? A saltwater crocodile in the waterskiing lake? A more likeable version of ourself waiting to crawl from our mouth and commandeer our pandemic pod? Through poetic flash and skillful, extended prose, Rolfes’ expertly mines the everyday for the not just the monumental, but the vulnerable, ultimately giving readers a generous, naked look at fictional lives quite similar to their own.”
-Whitney Collins, author of Big Bad

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