"I found myself wondering how many people died to make these stories. Survivors (and the dead) tell their tales with devastating aplomb and dangerous self-delusion. Domench's monologues by drunks and suicides, do-gooders and cranks, reckless lovers, and one stalwart child speak for all of us. You won't forget these people or their desperate search for words to justify their lives. There's no turning around from these stories."

Dan Domench’s WAYSIDE CROSS is a stunning example of what this genre can do: these expertly inter-related dramatic monologues - spoken from this world and the next - create a complex and nuanced universe whose characters’ simple speech is hugely resonant and moving. In the tradition of Steinbeck and Carver, these are the voices of the dispossessed, the disappointed, the half-mad with grief, who speak from the fringes of American society, but struggle with the contradictions and impulses, the fragility of what we are all made of. I will be listening to these stories for years to come. This is the raw, bold, real thing. It’s a masterpiece, and it’s poetry.

Review featured on front page of Portland Phoenix

"A thrilling collection of voices."

"Dan Domench's work haunts, sings, slides under skin... something alive there... in the dark...Voices. Streams. Bridges. The body's steam. Somewhere between sex, voices, and silences. Here is a highly resonant, compelling, unforgettable work... from a writer and observer of the world and of the minds in it... here he documents things behind the seeing... a writer who speaks of bodies. Voices. A house by a river. An unlit Church there - in the dark."

Marian Haddad, Poet and essayist, "Saturn Falling Down" and "Somewhere between Mexico and a River Called Home", Pecan Grove Press.

"Dan Domench writes beautiful and memorable stories told in equally unforgettable - and true - voices. You owe it to yourself to hear Hold Me Fast."

Laurence N. Moffi, "A Citizen's Handbook", poems, Orchises Press, "Crossing the Line: Black Major Leaguers 1949-1957", University of Nebraska Press, and "The Conscience of the Game", University of Nebraska Press in 2006.

"Dan Domench goes into that lonely place - breaks into that lonely place - and even comes out with the dirty ashtrays. He'll find you in there, too."

Colin Sargent is the author of "Blush" and "Undertow" published by Coyote Love Press, past winner of the Maine Arts Fellowship in Poetry, and
Editor and Publisher of Portland Monthly Magazine

"These stories are quite simply the best I’ve encountered in years, and in a form that moves the American short story into a whole new territory. There is a level of maturity, even mastery in these stories, and they fit into a context, come from a lineage, and to my mind Dan Domench is taking his proper place among the finest of our writers."

Alfred DePew, author of "Wild and Woolly: A Journal Keeper's Handbook" and the collection of short stories "The Melancholy of Departure" that won the Flannery O'Connor Award.

"We yearn for truth, all mind and flesh of it. So, too, when pummeled by imperialistic lies, both domestic and foreign, we turn our burning ears toward Domench and his cast — the virtually anonymous, powerful weak, and victimized hero/heroines—who exude probity, loyalty, and affection in mind-bending/body defying acts of compassion, redemption, and je ne sais quoi."

Mark Melnicove, author of "Advanced Memories", poet and artist, and founder of
Tillbury House Press.