"Mayo's
work is reminiscent of Flannery O'Connor's. And
like that old master, Mayo is addictive and her collection has
a unity that is very satifying."
Booklist
"A remarkable
literary debut... tautly fashioned prose, alive with myriad turns
of phrase as on-target as they are idiosyncratic."
Publisher's
Weekly (starred
review)
"hauntingly,
humorously beautiful"
Austin
Chronicle
"C.M. Mayo
writes some of the most exquisitely fashioned, perfectly measured
prose alive in the world today. Her stories glitter with delicious
odd details. They feel electrically charged, richly mysterious,
and rhythmic. I love her layering of cultures, her offbeat humor,
her potent instinct for voices. Bravo! Captivating! Yes, yes,
yes!"
Naomi
Shihab Nye
"The
haywire circuits of our whole electrically but not ethically
connected global village stand exposed in Mayo's work. Sky
Over El Nido won the 1995 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short
Fiction. I am not surprised."
David
Toolan, S.J., Commonweal
"Sky
Over El Nido is a breath-taking first collection... These
stories are vibrant, strange, loaded with off-beat humor, exquisite
detail, and delivered with near-perfect pitch. Sky Over El
Nido shimmers with life."
The
Virginia Quarterly Review
I
highly recommend C.M. Mayo’s (the 1995 Flannery O’Connor
Short Fiction Award winner) collection of short stories Sky
over El Nido, especially the remarkable stories there: “The
Wedding” and “Rainbow’s End,” which show
the collision between México profundo and México
imaginario.
Sterling
Bennett