of the vernacular. Would it not have looked something like this?” –The Chesterton Review What's bracing about Oser's work is its absolute lack of puritanism. Like Walker Percy, he suspects that Catholics might already be acquainted with sin. He fearlessly depicts sex, he reports the bad language, and he doesn't shy away from uncomfortable humor....It's by no means a realist novel, however, but something like a tongue-in-cheek allegory, as one begins to suspect when Sir Ted meets his match in Hurricane Gabriel and the mystery of Johnny Donovan's death finally comes to light. Oser's novel makes its readers ask which oracles they've been attending and what might happen in their silence. Young Richard Bellman—it's worth thinking about what a “bellman” is—emerges largely unscathed, and with an essential quiet dignity. There's no triumphalism here, no relegation of souls to heaven or hell. Oser's gift is making it deeply attractive to come back to the sanity of worshiping what deserves it. –Glenn Arbery, Dappled Things “what comes through…is the way that his characters use religious language; it is not forced, and sounds, to my ear at least, as how people who need language to express serious things, but who don't actually believe, are nonetheless forced back on the language of faith. When Bellman finally understands how Donovan might have met his end, the insight comes wrapped in a reflection on choice, fate, and the unknown ways of God—a meditation that is both subtle and profound. If Oser is…writing in a still small voice, maybe that's because it's in just such a voice that people typically speak of first and last things.” –Gerald J. Russello, Books & Culture “The Oracles Fell Silent is a seething indictment of contemporary preoccupations with fame, one written with humor and style…Certain to enrapture readers interested in rock and roll’s less seductive underbelly, Oser’s book offers a captivating and witty picture of the features and failings of contemporary culture.” –Foreword Reviews Oregon Confetti Pushing forty, Portland art dealer Devin Adams has been so successful conning the local Philistines that he can no longer tell actual art from the highly profitable junk that supports his living. But the sudden appearance on his doorstep of the great painter John Sun, bearing a strange child, changes all that, confronting Devin with the hard facts of his life, from his lusts and obsessions to his own small part in a mass psychosis