Ordinary Sins

“What’s funny, in these sometimes silly, sometimes sweet, and sometimes chilling little stories, is how rarely—if ever—Jim Heynen’s characters are actually types, no matter what their titles suggest. They stand in quiet testimony to their author’s gift for finding the singular character in what each individual does, which he captures simply in his own singular, characteristic, not-so-simple terms.”

“I have been an avid reader of Jim Heynen’s writing for more than three decades, eagerly awaiting the arrival of each and every one of his new books. Ordinary Sins is both genius and generous, a beautifully crafted collection of short-short fiction filled with keen wit and stunning acuity. Heynen is a master storyteller, and in Ordinary Sins he is at the height of his powers. Somewhere the ghost of Theophrastus is nodding his head in enthusiastic approval.”

“As much modern day folk tales as they are études on the quirks, reversals, and underlying consistencies in the human equation, these fictional shorts make for marvelously compulsive reading. Ordinary Sins never fails to produce extraordinary fillips of insight, and to illuminate, sometimes uncomfortably, what we try not to notice about ourselves or our culture. Jim Heynen’s collection is serious fun.”

“The voices found in Jim Heynen’s utterly charming Ordinary Sins are funny and heartbreaking, droll and wise. We find tinges of Thoreau’s ‘lives of quiet desperation,’ while also recognizing concerns and obsessions and affections that abide within us all. With delightful specificity, Heynen creates world after world that we feel lucky to inhabit for a page or two before we move on to the next luminously drawn character.”