"Like Sherwood Anderson's classic Winesburg, Ohio, Lyon's debut collection . . . lifts the rock off a seemingly sleepy town to cast light on the quietly desperate secret lives of its inhabitants. Lawton Falls, Massachusetts, is a dying mill city whose ethnically mixed population includes politicians, priests, blue-collar workers, mixed-up teens, and the newspaperman of the title tale. . . . Lyons, a remarkably gifted writer, renders these slices of life with compassion and a keen eye for telling detail. Highly recommended."—Library Journal

"Lyons fills his dusky landscape with a marvelous array of characters, all of them distinctly drawn, their dilemmas equally compelling. . . . The Last Good Man is less a collection of discrete stories than a cohesive portrait of a place and its people, and Daniel Lyons takes us on a rich and eloquent tour."—Boston Globe

"Showing an admirable capacity for depicting neighborhood life in a wonderfully varied ethnic spectrum, Lyons writes knowingly of his characters’ predicaments. . . . An unfailing eye for detail endows these captivating tales with perceptive psychological portrayals. An impressive debut."—Booklist

"A gripping and remarkably fine first collection . . . rich in detail and theme."—Kirkus Reviews