The first story, "Patriots," in Patrick Dacey's debut short story collection, We've Already Gone This Far, sets the tone for the rest of the book. What would be any other American suburb is turned into a cauldron of resentment, fear, loneliness and, finally, redemption. When a woman--still reeling from her husband's abandonment--takes her anger out on her neighbor's Iraq War veteran son, it's clear that Dacey analyzes human nature closely and mines relationships for insight.
In subsequent stories, a bored ex-football coach goes on a joyride with an old player who's come into hard times, and Dacey takes his readers into the depths of sadness and loneliness in both, showing how each man's expectations for the night become stand-ins for the expectations they had for themselves. A man living in a hotel after his wife leaves him has a revelation about love, friendship and responsibility in an Applebee's bar. Another man drives around the country looking for job opportunities that he can write home to his daughter about.
The story "Ballad," about an ex-musician trying to write a song with his baby daughter for his wife, unfolds as a literal representation of the collection's many layers. The narrative, written without punctuation as a stream-of-conscious monologue to the infant, becomes a story about the musician's failings as a husband, which becomes the perfect song.
For Dacey's characters, every moment of every day carries the potential for either dizzying heights or crushing defeat. --Josh Potter