Assorted Fire Events
From a married man consummating a hazy summer affair and getting lost in a reverie that explains the far-away look in his eyes" ("Coitus") to a recently widowed mother who must decide what to do with a video of her honeymoon love-making ("The Widow Predicament"), David Means probes the depths of the human heart.
Work Information
From a married man consummating a hazy summer affair and getting lost in a reverie that explains the far-away look in hi…
From a married man consummating a hazy summer affair and getting lost in a reverie that explains the far-away look in his eyes" ("Coitus") to a recently widowed mother who must decide what to do with a video of her honeymoon love-making ("The Widow Predicament"), David Means probes the depths of the human heart. The stories collected here range the American landscape: suburban sprawl leads to disastrous consequences in Pushcart Prize-winning "What They Did;" a Depression-era hobo holds on to a freight train that roars through the desert night as well has his scattered past ("The Grip"); sneaking into a wedding reception, a homeless man forever changes the lives of all present ("The Interruption"); and in "The Railroad Incident," a business executive sheds his shoes for an evening walk straight into the heart of darkness. Everywhere crystalline moments emerge that seem strange yet gritty and remarkably real. Means never fails to find the locus of grace and redemption in the most complex, and sometimes horrifying situations.
Book Information
- Publisher
- HarpPeren
- Published
- 2006-11-07
- Pages
- 165 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 12.7 x 1.27 x 20.32 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780060855789
- ISBN-10
- 0060855789
- Price
- 5177 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Short Stories/Single Author
In his award-winning second collection, David Means explores the fragility of those things that we cherish most. His incomparable, distinct voice—often wildly humorous, always engaging—has led the New York Times to call Means "one of our most talented younger writers."
David Means is the author of A Quick Kiss of Redemption and The Secret Goldfish . His stories have appeared in The New Yorker , Harper's , Esquire , The O. Henry Prize Stories , and The Best American Short Stories . He lives in Nyack, New York, and teaches at Vassar College.
Reviews
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Superb and beatiful at every level: word, sentence, passage. Accomplished in all aspects inherent to effective short stories: plot, character, voice, substantive irony, etc. Each story left me simultaneously wanting more and appreciative that nothing more was needed.
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I bought this book because I'd heard about David Means' excellent writing, and had earlier bought and read and loved 'The Secret Goldfish'. This collection of short stories was no disappointment - various, very well-written, interesting and thought-provoking. As a writer myself, I am particularly interested in the way he uses different formats, styles and voices for his stories.
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beautiful prose for less than beautiful subjects
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A collection of beautifully written stories, engaging and sad, full of cosmic irony. I highly recommend this book. Ronald Alexander.
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A really accomplished collection which invokes a good deal of the spirit of writers such as Raymond Carver. There's a fluent sense of the interaction and interconnectedness of 'Short Cuts' and the urban spaces of Edward Hopper. Contemporary and controlled.