"The sly, deadpan humor in many of these stories is both charming and artful. Humor strikes me as one of the most elusive qualities in fiction, but to Robert Foreman comedy seems second nature. This is an impressive, highly original and satisfying collection."
--Christine Sneed, author of The Virginity of Famous Men
“Robert Long Foreman’s stories are so smooth. They glide along as if on ice. No tricks, no twirls, no fancy moves. And then you realize the ice is dangerously thin. Every story of Foreman’s is two stories. There’s the top story, the narrative itself. But underneath is another story, keeping pace, racing along, hyperventilating. The driest humor, the wildest imagination. Bizarre stuff told by the most matter-of-fact, deadpan narrators. In every story, Robert Long Foreman achieves what even the best bestselling authors fail to do: render the extraordinary ordinary; the ordinary, extraordinary.”
- Sara Pritchard, author of Crackpots, Lately, and Help Wanted: Female
Robert Long Foreman is an exciting and original new voice in fiction, which is abundantly evident in his thrilling debut collection, I Am Here to Make Friends. In the tradition of DeLillo and Saunders—and Foreman belongs in the company of such great writers—Foreman’s characters are ordinary unsung people whose lives are made briefly interesting by a small unexpected change or phenomenon that slowly, hilariously, and poignantly spirals into absurdity. With a deft hand, Foreman spins sentences that are subtly surprising and vibrant with meaning. He’s an acute observer of human nature, of the ironies and duplicities inherent in contemporary American culture. His wry wit is a gift that he deploys--like a literary weapon--to make you chuckle at his characters (ourselves), even as he stealthily breaks your heart with their thwarted longing. Foreman’s I am Here to Make Friends is a brilliant and compelling collection by an exceptionally talented writer who reveals the weirdness in our day to day lives at this moment in history. This is a dazzling book.
-- Maureen Stanton, author of Body Leaping Backward: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood and Killer Stuff and Tons of Money: An Insider’s Look at the World of Flea Markets, Antiques, and Collecting.