"In Forty-five American Boys, William Walsh limns a complete series of cabinet portraits that show how tales, memories, and artifacts create the story of a life. But, of course, these are not just any lives. These are about forty-five of the most ambitious men in American history. By witnessing their childhood, Walsh shows when the commonality of boyhood mixes with the seeds of idealism and determination—the early sparks for the eventual combustion that will create something larger than life. Forty-five American Boys is a meticulously crafted collage of myth, legend, and fact that tells us as much about these boys as it tells us about ourselves as individuals and as a culture."
— Adam Braver, author of Mr Lincoln’s Wars and November 22, 1963
"It is said that at the heart of every cliché lies a grain of truth. Each line of Forty-five American Boys flickers between cliché and truth, at turns inspiring and insipid, a device that propels a searing political critique. William Walsh demonstrates that, when done well, the selection and arrangement of previously existing texts can result in fabulously original literature."
— Kenneth Goldsmith, author of Capital: New York, Capital of the 20th Century and Wasting Time on the Internet
William Walsh is the author of Forty-five American Boys (Outpost 19), Stephen King Stephen King, Unknown Arts, Ampersand, Mass., Pathologies, Questionstruck (all from Keyhole Press) and Without Wax (Casperian Books). His work has appeared in a number of journals, including Always Crashing, Annalemma, Artifice, Caketrain, Hobart, Juked, LIT, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, New York Tyrant, Rosebud, and Quarterly West, as well as anthologies like The &NOW Anthology: Best of Innovative Writing, Dzanc's Best of the Web, and New Micro: Norton Anthology of Exceptionally Short Fiction.