Boys who Do the Bop

<p class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>These stories are rich in intimate glimpses into the inner worlds of quietly extraordinary people: a man who wants to give fatherly love to his girlfriend's son; a farmer who regrets the loss of a great tree from her front lawn for her family's satellite reception; an immigrant who tells his American wife the same two old family stories and only fixes two-stroke engines.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Rick Rofihe's work has been well received by critics at </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>The New Yorker The New York Times Book Review The Los Angeles Times The Wall Street Journal Publishers Weekly Library Journal and Washington Post Book World</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>Bruce Allen in <em>The New York Times Book Review</em> wrote <span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>These surgically precise slices of intelligent life are distinguished by virtuosic phrase-making and fetchingly off-beat specifics. Gregory McNamee in </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Washington Post Book World</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> wrote Rofihe speaks convincingly in many voices. Rick Rofihe's stories were praised in </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>The New Yorker</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> with these words: ... brief mostly first-person stories about the riddles of communication and the grammar of loneliness. Rofihe's oblique narratives are coded messages waiting to be deciphered. He is a Whiting Award winner and has taught at Columbia University.</span></p><p><br></p>