Richard Martin's I Inherited a Mixed Animal from Uncle Living in Woods is strange, brilliant, unique, and hilarious. There are so many moments of brilliance in this book. By way of Lemuel, Shane, Yonder, and the ragtag citizens of Hmm, Martin draws us in to a place we don't recognize at all until we recognize it so completely we come to think of it as home. Somehow infusing beauty and humor into each page, if not every sentence, Martin reminds us the world is not to be taken lightly, except when it is. Simple and complex, ludicrous yet authentic, and utterly, painfully relatable, it reminds one of the old theatre of the absurd. Ionesco. Ibsen. A tale about finding our people in this often-lonely and messed up world, this book is nothing short of incandescent. I hope the Pulitzer folks take note. - Gae Polisner, author of In Sight of Stars and Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me

Brilliantly creative and utterly hilarious, Richard Martin's I Inherited a Mixed Animal from Uncle Living in Woods is a masterpiece. This wonderful novel is consistently laugh-out-loud funny, but in a loving way. The author through his sardonic narrator, Lemuel, isn't shy to point out that the human flaws and frailties we find amusing can be found in all of us if we look hard enough. The oddball yet incisive and warm humor make us care about Yonder and his bewildered keeper. Filled with colorful and memorably unexpected prose to match its characters, the novel's humor is reminiscent of T.R. Pearson's A Short History of a Small Place; its delightfully original settings and cast recalling Katherine Dunn's Geek Love; its gentle yet incisive satire resurrecting memories of the canon of Kurt Vonnegut; its homespun wisdom walking in the footsteps of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. However, it is by no means derivative. This book, like Dunn's Geek Love, has no siblings. It is an only child. -- Steven Mayfield, author of The Penny Mansions

A rowdy, fast-paced and moving tale of unique surrealism, Richard Martin's I Inherited a Mixed Animal from Uncle Living in Woods is utterly original, unlike anything you have had the pleasure to read. This novel invites the reader into a world with its own dream-like logic, a constant feast of visual delights and hilarious dialogue that keeps the reader turning pages well into the night. Martin has successfully and joyfully created a world that hearkens back to a Pieter Bruegel-like sensibility combined with an astute sense of Americana, an Americana of the absurd. One of the great triumphs of the novel is the mixed animal himself, Yonder, who dwells in the realm of the inexplicable, and while remaining a mystery is also whole and tangible. How the author describes Yonder is a delicious literary achievement. Mixed Animal is a genuine madcap delight, a truly one-of-a-kind yarn. The reader is taken into that hyper spot at the end of a dream where the unreasonable somehow makes complete sense. You will laugh out loud and shake your head in disbelief. You will highlight passages and show them to your friends. Yonder will become a part of your own dreamscape, the ultimate surrealist creation who is both impossible to imagine, and yet real as can be. A marvel! - Stephen Tunney, author of One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy and Flan