Many of the stories initially appeared in different forms in various magazines, including Kenyon Review, Harper's, The New Yorker and Quarterly West.

[2][3] In a rave review in The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani had high praise for Saunders' writing style: "He's a savage satirist with a sentimental streak who delineates, in these pages, the dark underbelly of the American dream: the losses, delusions and terrors suffered by the lonely, the disenfranchised, the downtrodden and the plain unlucky."

Comparing him to Nathanael West, she concluded, "Mr. Saunders' satiric vision of America is dark and demented; it's also ferocious and very funny.

Mr. Saunders is one of those rare writers who can effortlessly blend satire and sentiment", particularly praising the story "Offloading for Mrs.

[6] Novelist Thomas Pynchon also saw in Saunders a vital new voice in American fiction: "An astoundingly tuned voice—graceful, dark, authentic, and funny—telling just the kinds of stories we need to get us through these times.”[7] In Publishers Weekly, conversely, a reviewer lauded Saunders as having a rich vision and "occasionally heart-melting prose", but stated that there is little difference in voice to distinguish one story from another.