“Of the multitude of fine books we revewed in 1997. . . Body Parts. . . is a sutable candidate for best book of the year.” -- “Annual Awards Issue,” Library Booknotes

Other Writers Say
"Everyone is howling for poetry to get off the bus and land in their lives. Never has our Southern landscape seemed so near the line of riot. Profound and superb!” -- Barry Hannah

“Hoar's carefully crafted prose moves across the page like shooting stars across a dark sky.”
-- Meredith S. Willis

"Rock hard and crystal clear, Hoar's voice is a welcome, refreshing aberration. His lines and images give us a world we have no choice but to acknowledge as here with us, its heart beating so furiously we can't help but look up from the page to our own world, and in that moment see the truth this writer speaks." -- Bret Lott

“The prose is clotted with talents and compensations. The humor is of the gutter-in Heaven-school. There is glee in situation making and a strange strong eye for fallible human detail...” --Allan Gurganus, awarding co-first place, William Faulkner-Pirate’s Alley Short Fiction Competition to “The Snopes Who Saved Huckaby”

"I could not put these stories down because of the pleasure of the lines. I never knew what word or lineII was going to be reading next. --Moria Crone

Additional Reviews
"At least half of these [stories], given the advantage of timing, might have taken the coveted O’Henry Award." --New Orleans Times-Picayune

"A notable contribution to Southern literature.” --“Exceptional Books of 1997,” Bookman News

“Hoar so clearly knows his way around the rough, odd corners of Southern fiction it is impossible to single out a favorite tale in this fine collection.” --The Miami Herald

”Like a gaspergoo in some black boyou, Hoar waits to jump you when you least expect it, and your plunge is unexpectedly deep”. --The Daily Mississippian

“Hoar’s stories jolt the reader like a sudden and sharp turn into a mirror. In each, characters strive and contend with fate, and their fates are never what they expect.”--Baton Rouge Daily Herald

"Each is a unique gem," --Charleston Post and Courier

"No writer has better captured thie funny side of the South." --The Orlando Sentinel

"Ironic twists, dark humor and powerful prose combine in delightful tales reflective of Southern culture over seven decades of the 20th century." --Newport News Daily Press

Hoar’s title story clears the terrain for some of the most heated social issues at the heart of contemporary American society .” --Alice Clark," Les Cashiers de la Nouvelle
 
“A winner!” -- Kirkus Reviews

"One can only be glad that literary magazines and the University Press of Mississippi exist to bring us writing as wonderful as this."  -- Dwight Allen, Louisville Courier Journal