"In her exquisitely crafted, superbly structured novel, Brkic summons undertones of Greek tragedy to create her arresting characters and their intense emotions and dire secrets. By dramatizing nuanced questions of who is at fault, who can be trusted, and who will sink or swim, Brkic reveals persistent, multigenerational wounds of war, sacrifice, exile, and longing and imagines how healing might commence." —Donna Seaman, Booklist [on The First Rule of Swimming]

"Spare and poignant . . . [Brkic has] produced a work so immeasurably distant from those all-too-common debut story collections . . . The impression we’re left with after reading Stillness is one of respect for Brkic's seriousness, her sympathy, and her spirit." —Francine Prose, The New York Times Book Review

"A dark, deeply moving memoir of time, loss, and survival . . . [Brkic] skillfully balances spare, almost mundane, details of body bags and bullets fused to bone with descriptions of the living-families of the dead, who still hold out hope that their missing will return. In these heartbreaking portraits, the real horror of Brkic's task emerges . . . The Stone Fields is a beautifully written book, by turns grim, stirring, heartbreakingly sad, but always affecting." —Debra Ginsberg, The San Diego Union-Tribune