"The author's jaunty voice [is] Beat-poet cool...Mohr nails the atmosphere of a San Francisco still breathing in the smoke that lingers from the days of Jim Jones and Dan White, a time when passionate ideologies and personal dysfunction intermingled and combusted."
- New York Times Book Review
- New York Times Book Review
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"At once gripping, lucid and fierce, 'Damascus' is the mature effort of an artist devoted to personal growth and as such contains the glints of real gold."
- San Francisco Chronicle
- San Francisco Chronicle
"Damascus succeeds in conveying a big-hearted vision."
- The Wall Street Journal
"This accomplished effort demonstrates Mohr’s rich, resonant prose, authentically rendered settings, and deft characterization."
"The novel has real impact. Reading like a cross between Harry Crews and Armistead Maupin, it has a wacky authenticity and demonstrates the preciousness of life. "
- Library Journal (starred review)
"[An] assured new novel...as gritty and sordid as its details are, Damascus has a soft, sentimental heart."
- The Columbus Dispatch
"On top of the hefty dose of empathy, Damascus is a page-turner. Mohr’s got an inherent ability to spin a yarn; it’s as if he’s standing over your shoulder lighting each page with a match as you read."
- The Rumpus
"With a remarkably subtle hand, Mohr leads the reader through a minefield of explosive topics...'Damascus' transcends all that and is nothing less than a primer on how to love those incapable of loving themselves."
- San Diego Citybeat
"This is exactly what makes Damascus such a powerful novel – Mohr manages to craft characters that are despicable at first but as they grow, the reader grows, and we then find ourselves cheering them on in the face of adversity, themselves, love, life, reality, and death."
- Pank Magazine
"The ghosts of Charles Bukowski and Richard Brautigan may whisper in the background of 'Damascus' but Mohr speaks to us with a unique and original voice. He is the new millennium street poet of San Francisco’s Mission District."
- 3 A.M. Magazine
"Damascus [is] a chimerical beast of a book, not yet seen north of the millennium."
- Vol. 1 Brooklyn
"Seeing plot and character converge so seamlessly is a rare treat in contemporary fiction."
- Word Riot
"Some of the humorous touches may remind readers of the prose of Bukowski, but where he would have shined the spotlight on their drunken stupor, Mohr reveals a more thoughtful, existential consideration of who these people are. If his work continues in this vein, we may one day instead see Bukowski being compared with Mohr."
- Shelf Awareness
"Mohr’s writing is appealing because it is raw and unfiltered, overheard on the street or from the next bar stool."
- The Sun Break
"This ensemble novel is skillfully painted in shades of grey, and every one of its characters resonates. Most impressively, the ease with which Mohr ties together their disparate stories. A truly masterfully written work of fiction."
- Largehearted Boy (includes playlist for Damascus)
"Quite a feat. Mohr treats his characters with such tenderness that he managed to squeeze the blood of empathy from this turnip I call a heart."
- Lit Reactor
"A better understanding of our sweetly seedy city we could not ask for. Mohr wonders who might hang out in a Mission dive bar...as the Iraq war changes everything a world away and just outside."
- SF Weekly
"Mohr's craftsmanship and deft subtlety in characterization comes into nuanced play as he sets the scene."
- Seattle PI
"The story is moving, bitterly charming, sometimes depressing, but always engaging."
- HTML Giant (includes interview)
"Damascus is part barroom Dickensian cultural dissection and part Paul Thomas Anderson’s 'Magnolia', a wide lens look at the frail and yearning, the artists and poets and cancer patients and prostitutes and bartenders and war vets and rock singers who proliferate the novel’s dive bar setting. Here the all-seeing narration hovers like God’s eye over the resultant turmoil, and who sees into all hearts and minds, into the confused and inarticulate core of humankind, all forced to face the consequences of their actions, held to the flame of accountability."
- Red Fez
"As a study of cancer, which claimed Mohr's father, 'Damascus' is most successful, describing in bold and lyrical detail the horrors, physical and psychological, faced by the disease's victims and the people left in its wake."
- San Francisco Chronicle
"It is impressive how vividly Mohr paints his characters, and how richly he weaves their stories in a book just slightly over 200 pages...they are beautifully alive."
- Devourer of Books
"Rivaling Tony O’Neill’s grittiness and Dave Eggers’ polished prose, Mohr is an articulate writer with another cult classic on his hands."
- Small Press Reviews
"Damascus is graceful at heart, but full of stumbling characters and stumbling lives. Mohr’s ability to mix humor and grief and sympathy together is enviable and brilliant."
- Blank Slate Press
"Mohr presents poignancies so sharp the cuts they leave won’t heal."
- Decomp Magazine