“Blake said the road to excess ieads to the palace of wisdom — but he never spent time in Put-in-Bay, where the pleasure-hungry hero of Doug Cooper’s Midwest saga Outside In goes to forget himself and re-find his wild side. For this debut novel, Cooper has fashioned a modern parable of Shangri Law morphing into The Inferno. The author owns a poet’s eye and an ear for the funny/tragic dialogue of the American lost and searching worthy of comparison to Mamet, Sherwood Anderson, and Joy Williams. A deep, entertaining read about all the truths that find us when we’re looking the other way.”
— Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight, Bad Sex On Speed, and Happy Mutant Baby Pills
