Praise for Human Resources:

"The seven far-out stories in Goldfaden's impressive debut explore the absurd without giving in to it. The first story, 'The Veronese Circle,' encapsulates a four-week group tour from Verona to Istanbul (and back) by six young writers who paid thousands of dollars to be guided by a Romeo and Juliet-quoting professor and his wife. 'Documentary' imagines how a young filmmaker, Samantha, will mature emotionally (and what may come of her relationship with her rising star painter boyfriend) while filming hours and hours of women giving birth. 'Looking at Animals' delves into the inner life of another kind of documentary photographer: after 30 years of photographing wild animals around the globe for National Geographic, Raymond retires and begins an acute interest in the goings-on of his neighbors. Admirably, Goldfaden roams widely and erratically, from surfers living on an exclusive beachfront ('Maryville, California, Pop. 7') to a bizarre set of contemporary pirates who give up robbing yachts to join a pirate-busting agency ('Nautical Intervention'). Goldfaden is an undeniable talent."
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“Like his ardent, tilted characters, Josh Goldfaden explores the disconnect between empirical evidence and our true understanding. Why doesn’t studying something teach us anything? His cast of characters includes pirates and writers and many folks in between and their labyrinthine investigations are chronicled with a sharp satirist’s eye. Here is a talented writer at the bright edge of his career.”
—Ron Carlson, author of A Kind of Flying and Five Skies

“Swift, surprising, funny, and in the end unexpectedly moving. Like the work of George Saunders, these stories seem to take place in a world right next door to our own, a world that’s brighter, stranger, bolder than ours. I was sorry to see this book end.”
—Kevin Canty, author of Winslow in Love and Honeymoon and Other Stories

“Sexy and syncopated, the stories in Human Resources hearken the twin pleasures of jazz: a sense of surprise and the weight of inevitability. In turns ironic, improvisational and knowing, Josh Goldfaden's stories are laced with play and passion, racing across the page with melodic humor and a soulful harmony. He’s the Thelonious Monk of fiction.”
—Adam Johnson, author of Emporium and Parasites Like Us