Tin God by Terese Svoboda 
“One of the pleasures of reading Terese Svoboda’s writing is that it makes you feel smart. . . . She has written nothing less than a meditation on the infinite. . . . Svoboda switches centuries the way other writers switch days. . . . The shifts do not disorient but function as appetizing scene changes. You think you’ll read just one more section before you put the book down, and you read three. ‘Most readers are in trouble about half the time,’ E.B. White opined in his revision of William Strunk Jr.’s Elements of Style. Here, you’re safe.” —Virginia Allen, Bloomsbury Review
“This new title from the University of Nebraska Press shimmers with crisp writing, an out-of-the ordinary story and unique characters." —Lincoln Journal Star (4/2/06)
“It’s hard to spell out dreams—to rein them in, to make the story under our lives rise to the surface. Terese Svoboda brings a light hand, a pinch of humor and a lot of irreverence to this weighty task with her new novel, Tin God. . . . [T]he wisdom of Tin God lies in the idea that, in dreams, some people get within spitting distance of God, while others sleep the sleep of forgetting.” —Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times (3/26/06)
“In this book, god is not a solemn, dignified deity but a wisecracking woman with attention deficit disorder—the intentionally lower-case, working-class version of a supreme being. . . . Readers will find Svoboda’s perspective on God, faith, and the impulses that drive human behavior original and quirky. Her characters are self-absorbed buffoons at times but totally believable. This funny romp is very highly recommended for public libraries.”—Library Journal (2/1/06)
"Fabulous fabulist Svoboda (Trailer Girl) checks in to indulge a talent for wild, sketchy comedy. Laid in Willa Cather country, this quick take has some of Thomas Pynchon’s quirky Americana crossed with the Indian tales of Jaime de Angulo. . . . Back and forth the narrative moves, with Steinian The Making of Americans logic gluing together this eccentric vision of a God-driven Middle America. Svoboda loves her red-state mopes, and that warmth both illuminates and animates her eccentric prose."—Publishers Weekly
UNP blog 