Joshua Hammer…a rhapsodic account…Hoagland captures a world of extremes where alcohol abuse is rampant, violence breaks out in places miles from the nearest law enforcement agent and the harsh climate permits no mistakes…
—The New York Times Book Review
Newsweek"To read two pages of Hoagland at random is to know immediately that you are in the hands of a supremely tough-minded man and a man of perfect honesty."
The Los Angeles Times"No contemporary essayist sifting through his own experience can match the unadomed clarity of Hoagland's voice."
Washington Post Book World"The Thoreau of our time, an essayist so personal, so sharp-eyed and deep-sighted, so tender and tough, lyrical and elegiac, as to transmute a simple stroll into a full-blown mystical experience.