Praise for Mud Season

“This hilarious novel within a novel showcases all the wit and brilliance long-time fans have come to expect of Jeff Kramer. From the halls of publishing to small-town entrepreneurship, no one emerges unscathed, not even Woody, the bumbling but well-meaning hero of his own purple prose. A raucous satire of our times that is also an affecting study of family bonds and an acerbic tribute to the flawed, glorious, once-mighty dinosaur that was daily journalism.”

—Ana Menendez, critically acclaimed author of In Cuba I was a German Shepherd and The Apartment

“A riotous exploration of ambition, passion and greed.”

 —Christopher Smith, theater critic, The Orange County Register

“Jeff Kramer is still the funniest writer I know in real life. He somehow makes you root for a man who starts at rock bottom and begins digging. A painfully funny look at the death of newspapers and the birth of one man's midlife crisis.”

—Christopher Farnsworth, best-selling novelist, screenwriter, journalist, author of the President’s Vampire and Jesse Stone series of novels

“With his uproarious novel Mud Season, Jeff Kramer delivers a laugh out loud satire, one which still manages to have compassion for its protagonist. Woody Hackworth is a writer by trade, but he is all of us by his foibles: vanity, delusion, pettiness, ambition, self-doubt. Anybody who has ever felt overlooked, resentful, or whiplashed by a mix of grandiosity and insecurity will relate to Woody. Kramer’s dialogue is pitch perfect, each of his characters gleefully and hilariously delineated. They are the perfect foils and cheerleaders for Woody, most often bursting his bubble, sometimes filling it with hot air. The dialogue is real and sharp, never descending into sentimentality, but still arousing the reader’s emotion. Kramer uses a striking “page turner within a pager turner” form to illuminate the mind of Woody Hackworth as he toggles back and forth between the drama in Woody’s own life and the drama Woody creates on the page. Kramer’s voice as Woody and his voice as Woody-as-author are distinct yet clearly belong to the same mind and ego. Brilliantly done. If you want a cathartic laugh at yourself, at others, and at the world, this book is a must.”

—Alfredo Botello, author of the novels Spin Cycle: Notes From A Reluctant Caregiver, and 180 Days: Infidelity. Architecture. Punk Rock. Clonazepam

“Jeff Kramer’s Mud Season is a razor-sharp, fast-talking ride that weaves pulpy crime caper through family drama. A veteran humorist at the top of his game, Kramer delivers laughs, heart and soul while making you consider the modern twists of the traditional trade-offs between personal ambition and family obligation.”

—Thomas Kohnstamm, author of Supersonic and Lake City

“Jeff Kramer's Mud Season is a well-crafted story of a writer's professional and personal frustrations finding their way into his manuscript - with a number of problematic embellishments!  The storyline and characters are well developed, allowing the reader to be drawn deeper into the plot step by step until he finds himself on a tightrope with the main character Woody. Mud Season is a light, entertaining and humorous read, which continues to draw the reader in page by page. Jeff Kramer is a skilled writer that will keep you guessing until the end. A great read!”

—Monique Taylor, author of Suicide Jockeys: The Making of the WWII Glider Pilot

“Woody Hackworth, Mud Season’s endearing protagonist, comes at us in a hall of mirrors, bouncing awkwardly between his luckless reality as an out-of-work reporter and the world inhabited by his grandiose fictional alter-ego. The villains in his environmental potboiler lead his readers to confuse them with Woody’s real-life in-laws. What could possibly go wrong? Everything! Kramer’s deft hand at dialogue turns scene after scene into the kind of hilarity we are promised in other works of satire but rarely get.”

—Tom Moroney, former Bloomberg News managing editor in Boston and radio host. 

“An immensely entertaining novel within a novel. Atwood (Woody) Hackworth, the antihero, is a hapless unemployed journalist of dubious talent who sets out to write the great American novel. But, when Woody's fiction too closely resembles real life, he alienates his wife, his daughter and every member of his extended family. Woody's obsession with literary acclaim leads him on a hilarious, twisting path where he finds something he cherishes even more than fame - redemption. A wry tale filled with razor sharp wit and just the right amount of heart.”

—Bill Burkland, author of The Misconceived Conception of a Baby Named Jesus