Advance Praise for It Happened Here
“Oh God. It rings true.”
— Roy Blount Jr, Author of 24 books, including Save Room for Pie, Alphabet Juice, and About Three Bricks Shy of a Load.
“A dysfunctional family moves into a dystopian future created by a so-called Great Leader who keeps postponing elections. It’s a nightmare, but why am I laughing so hard? Richard Dresser’s It Happened Here is the witty, resonant story we need right now.”
— Betsy West, Codirector of RBG and Fred W. Friendly Professor Emerita at Columbia Journalism School
“This book is as astonishing as it is extraordinary. Richard Dresser has stared into the wounded chasm that is our political division and in it seen the intersection where reality meets fiction. He has found the heartbeat of our nightmare in the American family. With a cold eye and deep compassion, he has crafted a tale in which deep sadness gives hope and in which deep darkness brings laughter. Truly a worthy read.”
— Lewis Black, Actor, Comedian, Playwright, Longest-Running Cast Member of The Daily Show, and New York Times Best-Selling Author of Nothing’s Sacred and Me of Little Faith
“Richard Dresser’s It Happened Here is a witheringly funny, presciently wise, and deeply alarming account of a nation’s corruption and a family’s redemption. If you still believe a single leader can’t poison a nation’s soul, if you imagine the worst won’t come to pass, if you presume the current assault on our Constitution will fail, then for your own good and the good of our country, wake up and read his powerful, important novel. Dresser’s fiction pulsates with truth. Don’t say you weren’t warned.”
— Peter Quinn, Award-Winning Author of Hour of the Cat, The Man Who Never Returned, Looking for Jimmy, and The Banished Children of Eve
“Listen up ... you are out of your mind if you don’t read It Happened Here as soon as possible. It’s more than a prescient prediction of our dystopian political future, more than a helter-skelter tumble down the rabbit hole of life ... it’s a heartbreaking, hilarious tale of a dysfunctional American family just as screwed up as yours. I don’t know who this Richard Dresser guy is, but I’d like to shake hands with him.”
— Jay Tarses, Television Writer and Producer of The Carol Burnett Show and The Bob Newhart Show
“It Happened Here, as its title would suggest, is equal parts thriller, jeremiad and comic demolition of who we are no matter where we’re headed, as it tracks an extended family’s disintegration that’s simultaneous with its country’s. It’s affecting in its assertion that taking care of a community begins with taking care of one another, and it’s harrowing and funny and persuasive in its claim that as a nation — and a species — we probably should have sought professional help somewhere along the way.”
— Jim Shepard, Award-Winning Novelist and Author of The World to Come and The Book of Aron