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“A collection of gems. By day Fred McGavran is a highly regarded Harvard-educated lawyer. By moonlight he crafts page-turners that draw on his deep experience with law and life. McGavran’s masterly writing invited comparison with John Grisham. But stir in Stephen King and Kafka—and eye for the absurd, an ear for dialog and a wickd sense of humor. McGavran ranks as a top lawyer-writer. His abiding concern with moral values reaches into literary traditions that include the best of Melville, Chekhov, and Graham Greene. His stories go down smoothly, but they linger and haunt. These stories are required reading for law-and-lit fans, lawyers with a sense of humor and all devotees of the art of short fiction.”
—Michale H. Hoffheimer, Professor of Law, University of Mississippi
“Fred McGavran’s
The Butterfly Collector is sardonic, erudite, and unexpectedly frightening. He will leave you wanting more.”
—P.F. Kluge, Writer in Residence at Kenyon College and author of Gone Tomorrow
“Fred McGavran’s first collection of short fiction,
The Butterfly Collector, etches the American haute bourgeoise with satire that stings in carefully observed detail but then predictably swerves into generous invention. The world he works with is O’Hara’s and Updike’s suburbia, mildly Midwestern, citified—but populated by lawyers, priests, occasionally therapists and academics, most of them aging badly, few of them attractive to women. His Dickensian devastation of the law, updated with voir dire, takes turns with magical realism. McGavran writes about memory, often about and unfortunate inability to remember selectively. Things keep coming back—submarines that rise years later to disgorge their dead or, elsewhere, unkillable bears and stags. Oddly dismembered limbs run through his stories, metaphors for what travels uselessly.”
—Britton J. Harwood, Professor of English, Miami University
