A nimal Acts- Reviews

"[Cris Mazza's fiction] would seem to be the work of a young person, but only because of its freshness.  It's clarity and simplicity, however, suggest an older writer's attention and experience."

-Grace Paley an dStuda Terkel, Judges

PEN/Nelson Algren Fiction Awards

"The stories contained in Cris Mazza's Animal Acts express an utterly original vision that is closer in spirit to Blue Velvet than to anything one is likely to encounter in the works of any of the "New Realists."  Once you get beneath the deceotively simple surfaces of these stories you find yourself in a startling, disquieting world where daily "civilized" behavior clashes headlong with the fantastic, irrational aspects of ourselves normally hidden from public scrutiny.  Mazza's writing style--with its precise rendering of exterior details, its dark humor, it's disturbing intensity - is perfectly suited to plumb the passions and mysteries lying barely concealed within the lives of her ordinary-seeming characters."

- Larry McCaffery