Product Description

From a married man consummating a hazy summer affair and getting lost in a reverie that explains the "far-away look in his eyes" to a recently widowed woman who must decide what to do with the video of her honeymoon love-making, this collection of short stories probes the depths of the human heart.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1691634 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 176 pages

Review
'ASSORTED FIRE EVENTS is one of the best American collections of the last ten years. Means' stories are harrowing and funny and full-blooded, consistently satisfying in their narrative twists, and lyrical in a way that makes most contemporary literary 'lyricism' sound like greeting cards. This is food for the hungry.' Jonathan Franzen, author of THE CORRECTIONS 'An uncompromising, humane vision makes these stories almost unaccountably lovely.' New York Times Book Review 'A book that not only will educate short-story writers on the craft of the story for years to come but will also move present-day readers to surprising tears.' Los Angeles Times 'Incidents that might seem melodramatic in the hands of another writer lead instead to crystalline reflections on the limits of self-knowledge and the ways in which our past fails to define us.' New Yorker

About the Author
David Means was born and raised in Michigan. He now lives in Nyack, New York with his wife and twins.

Customer Reviews

A beautifully written assortment of life-changing stories
This collection of short stories is certainly one of the best that I've read. Means writes exceptional prose, something like Cormac McCarthy out of TC Boyle. The sentences and emotions are all lovingly crafted, and you can easily see why this won the Los Angeles Times book prize. Some of the images are lasting and very original - the eyes of a dead person refuse light, for instance. If there are a few too many dead people in the collection for everyone's taste, that does not mean that this is not a significant collection - likely to be among the best fiction published in the UK this year.