On a spring night in Chicago, a city mystic on tilt named Satchel hops on his bike to make a decision. The extended unemployment benefits of the Great Recession are winding down and the law school where Satchel was accepted needs his final verdict. With his wife’s successful friends coming over, the unemployed father of two escapes to meet up with a crowd of younger artists. Contemplations of fatherhood and selfhood, joyous etudes and racehorse dreams fill Satchel’s mind as he makes his way across Chicago’s streets grasping for a torch worth passing down. 


It's like Dashiell Hammett meets Eugène Ionesco meets the 21st century.      
   Laird Hunt, on The Escapees          

If Hieronymus Bosch had been a writer in the 21st century, this is the novel he could have written, but in his absence, The Anvils was written by Kevin Kilroy, writer, horseplayer and philosopher on two wheels. As one who writes on the culture and redemption of bicycling, I can say that The Anvils ranks along with Ron McLarty’s Memory of Running as one of the most significant works of fiction featuring a bike ride, even though in both cases, the bicycle serves as a medium for self-discovery rather than an end in itself. The reader need not ride a bike to enjoy the read. In fact, once you start reading, you will not want to step on the brakes.
     Mark Cramer, author of If Thoreau Had a Bicycle