Reviews of Tearjerker

“Fans of the recent films Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind will enjoy Hayes’s similarly comic, cerebral storytelling, as well as the novel’s quirky, touching romance.” —Publishers Weekly

“Hayes, whose dark humor is drawn with taught, no-nonsense prose, has a sly way of riffing on multiple literary genres.” —The Rake

“It’s perfectly accurate to call Tearjerker a creepily clever first novel. But it may be more helpful to describe it as a sly little Mobius strip of self-reflective narrative invention.” —The Seattle Times

“In this darkly humorous debut novel, Hayes explores the human reality behind the tabloid headlines and the pathos of failure and yearning in a culture of high-stakes celebrity.” —San Diego Reader

“Tearjerker has the claustrophobic power of a bad dream, but a scathingly funny bad dream. It is sure to give anyone who ever dreamed of being interviewed on “The Charlie Rose Show” the heebie jeebies. But with its wit, its candor, and its dead-on analysis of the way we live now, it should do that to us all.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“An offbeat and funny debut, in which the author probes the cantankerous loneliness of a confused and unfulfilled young many with the soul of an artist.” —Library Journal

“Readers will like this predominantly passive character study that subtly keeps the audience attention from the moment Evan acts until the final chat.” —The Midwest Book Review

 Read an interview with Daniel Hayes on Bookslut.