Steinke's prose repeatedly hints at the divine in tangible things.
–The New Yorker
The most ferocious and chilling portrait of suburbia in years..imagine a goth-rock, literary lovechild of Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O'Connor.
–The Village Voice
Steinke has a diabolical grasp of the wilfulness of decadence, the ambiguity of sexuality and the transmutability of idenity---(Suicide Blonde is an) electricifying tale with the ambience of a Warhol or John Waters film. Edgy and powerful stuff.
–Booklist
No doubt "Up Through the Water" will turn up on summer reading lists and if it doesn't, it should. But it's also a book for the winter, for the cold. It will be like the ferry, a conveyance to another place. As one of the characters says to Eddie when he's ready to leave: "Come December, you'll find some sand in the pocket of a pair of pants you never wear and you'll think about this place. "Up Through the Water" will serve nicely for the same purpose.
