With a voice that maintains a gritty strength balanced with poetic vision, Barry Graham pushes all his chips to the center of the table in this col...
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reviews
Apr 21, 2009
Ben
rated it: 
Barry Graham pulls off a really neat trick with The National Virginity Pledge. On the surface what you get is a series of awesomely disturbed pieces rife with prostitutes, gamblers, tacos, Wal-Mart, car crashes, and bodily fluids. The thing is, while the interplay between these images are entertaining all by themselves, what you come to realize as you slowly lose yourself in Graham's cracked world, is that these stories are also a super-insightful exploration of all the myriad ways relationships
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Feb 07, 2009
Jason
rated it:
Gritty, honest, raw: These are words used to describe Barry Graham's The National Virginity Pledge, and they couldn't be more accurate. This debut collection pulls no punches and bars no holds. Most of the stories are delivered from a first person point of view in past tense, and while this works more often than not, I would've liked to see opener "On the Edge" and "The Cigarette Story" in present tense. I believe present tense would've heightened the tension and suspense. No
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Apr 06, 2010
Lavinia
rated it: 
I don't always use the word "gritty" because it's often overused, but really, it was...gritty. In a good way.
Sep 21, 2010
Steven
rated it:
When I think of edgy fiction, Barry Graham is up there with a bullet. He's fearless and shows the middle finger to taboos. These are smash-mouth stories, but also full of vulnerability in the most surprising places, and that's when they rip your heart out.
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