"...maybe Gary L. McDowell didn’t set out to write a big fat hymn to the human condition. But he did. The brilliant American Amen wrestles, body and spirit, with our belligerent world." - Amy Newman
"American Amen is a moving and remarkably mature debut. In it one finds a Midwestern Robert Hass—impeccably tuned to birdsong, the whispering trees, the erotic and broken heartbeat of the every day." - Alex Lemon
