Kirjahaku

The paperback of the critically acclaimed story collection from David Means. ‘One of the best American collections of the last ten years…This is food for the hungry.’ Jonathan Franzen ‘His writing blazes with originality and self-assuredness…A striking new voice in American fiction.’ Dominic Bradbury, The Times ‘Worlds collide and spring apart…this sort of thing happens all the time in life, yet I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone bother to express it so devastatingly in literature.’ Julie Myerson, Guardian ‘There are stories in this collection that expose the pain of growing up, or the lies within marriage, as well as anything written by anyone, anywhere…The finest collection of stories to appear in years.’ John Burnside, Scotsman ‘Means presents the perfect detail at the perfect time. He has a tender, but revealing grasp of human frailty and – that rare thing – a gift for finding and conveying dignity to his characters.’ A.L. Kennedy ‘An unsettling, fiercly felt debut collection. His prose can sometimes give you lives in single sentences. In its rigour and controlled sense of experiment, it is reminiscent of some of the best of the more singular American short story writers of the last few decades.’ Tim Adams, Observer ‘We care for the characters as if we have known and loved and detested them forever…An exceptional book.’ Michel Faber, Scotland on Sunday

An extraordinary collection of short stories from the Man Booker prize longlisted author of HYSTOPIA.

In a latest collection of short works, the award-winning author of Assorted Fire Events features such protagonists as a hapless man who tries to avoid being struck by lightning, a pair of canines bent on mayhem, and a neglected goldfish that watches a family falling to pieces. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

Finalist for the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Prize A new collection of stories by David Means, a visionary "master of the form" (The Observer). Two nurses meet in the hospital parking lot to share a cigarette. They flirt and imagine a future together. They tell stories of patients lost and patients saved, of the darkest corners of human suffering and the luminous moments that break through, even here, in the shadow of death. In David Means's virtuosic new collection, time unfolds in unexpected ways: a single, quiet moment swells with the echoes of a widower's complicated marriage; a dachshund, given a new name and a new life by a new owner, catches the scent of the troubled man who previously abandoned her; young lovers become old; estranged couples return to their vows; and those who have died live on in perpetuity in the memories of those whom they touched. The stories in this collection--which have won the O. Henry Prize and the Pushcart Prize, and have been featured in The Best American Short Stories--confirm the promise of a writer who "believes in the power of stories to rescue and redeem people" (Max Liu, Financial Times). A revelatory meditation on trauma and catharsis, isolation and communion, Two Nurses, Smoking reflects the dislocations and anguish of our age, as well as the humanity and humor that buoy us.

At the bitter end of the 1960s, upon his return home from combat in the Vietnam War, twenty-two-year old Eugene Allen writes a novel called HYSTOPIA. It is set in a strangely destabilized historical moment, where President Kennedy is entering his third term in office, and a new federal agency maintains the mental health of returning soldiers by wiping their memories through drugs and therapy, while those beyond help roam at will, re-enacting the atrocities they have witnessed. Outlandish and tender, funny and violent, timely and historical, Hystopia is a wild, gonzo experience about the nature of trauma, homecoming, and the redemptive power of storytelling.

'One of the most talented writers of short fiction in America. . .' James Wood, New YorkerFollowing the publication of his widely acclaimed, Man Booker-nominated novel Hystopia, David Means returns to his signature form: the short story.Instructions for a Funeral finds a universally admired practitioner in newly expansive territory. Means writes with compassionate precision about fatherhood, marriage, a homeless brother, the nature of addiction, and the death of a friend at the hands of a serial killer nurse. He transmutes a fistfight in Sacramento into a tender, life-long love story; two FBI agents on a stakeout in the 1920s into a tale of predator and prey; a man's funeral instructions into a chronicle of organized crime, real estate ventures, and the destructive force of paranoia.Means's work has earned him comparisons to Flannery O'Connor, Alice Munro, Sherwood Anderson, Denis Johnson, Edgar Allan Poe, Anton Chekhov, and Raymond Carver but his place in the American literary landscape is fully and originally his own.'David Means is that lucky (and brilliant) writer: a man in full possession of a vision.'- Richard Ford

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. In his masterful story 'A River in Egypt', David Means paints a portrait of a moment. Cavanaugh and his young son are suspended; trapped in what a nurse calls 'the sweat chamber', where the boy will be tested for cystic fibrosis.Cavanaugh has brought distractions - spasmodic action figures, malformed toy trucks - but they do little to alter the frustration of the sick child screaming, or to alleviate the anxiety of the time spent waiting for 'some exactitude in the form of a diagnosis'.Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

The Spot is an old blacksmith shed in which three men tweeze apart the intricacies of a botched bank robbery. The Spot is a park on the Hudson River, where two lovers sense their affair is about to come to an end. The Spot is at the bottom of Niagara Falls, where the body of a young girl floats as if caught in the currents of her own tragic story. The Spot is in the ear of a Manhattan madman plagued by a noisy upstairs neighbor . The Spot is a suburban hospital room in which a young father confronts his son's potentially devastating diagnosis. The Spot is a dusty encampment in Nebraska where a gang of inept radicals plot a revolution. The Spot draws thirteen new stories together into a masterful collection that shows David Means at his finest: at once comically detached and wrenchingly affecting, expansive and concise, wildly inventive and firmly rooted in tradition. Means's work has earned him comparisons to Flannery O'Connor (London Review of Books), Alice Munro, Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac (Newsday), Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson (Chicago Tribune/NPR), Denis Johnson (Entertainment Weekly), Poe, Chekhov, and Carver (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel), but the spot he has staked out in the American literary landscape is fully and originally his own.

Upon its publication, "Assorted Fire Events "won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, and received tremendous critical praise. Ranging across America, taking in a breathtaking array of voices and experiences, this story collection now stands as one of the finest of our time.

LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZENamed a Best of the Year Selection by Kirkus Reviews, the San Francisco Chronicle, Commonweal Magazine, and the Library of Michigan In his widely acclaimed and ambitious debut novel, David Means, one of America's greatest living short story writers, has produced a disorienting yet mesmerizing novel-within-a-novel. Twenty-two year old Eugene Allen, a Vietnam War veteran, has penned a revisionist history of the period that, channeled through Means, explores the realities of trauma, both national and personal. Consider Allen's imaginative register: John F. Kennedy has survived multiple attempts on his life and is entering his third term. Meanwhile, as the Vietnam War continues to wage, soldiers returning home face two fates: have their memories of war erased or, if they are too damaged for treatment, be released without monitor. But pain and their toxic strains of PTSD ultimately creates a band of deranged rogues, evading the government and reenacting atrocities on their own people. Outlandish and tender, funny and violent, timely and historical, Hystopia invites us to consider whether our traumas can ever truly be overcome. The answers it offers are wildly inventive, deeply rooted in its characters, and wrung from the author's own heart.

Finalist for the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Prize A new collection of stories by David Means, a visionary "master of the form" (The Observer). Two nurses meet in the hospital parking lot to share a cigarette. They flirt and imagine a future together. They tell stories of patients lost and patients saved, of the darkest corners of human suffering and the luminous moments that break through, even here, in the shadow of death. In David Means's virtuosic new collection, time unfolds in unexpected ways: a single, quiet moment swells with the echoes of a widower's complicated marriage; a dachshund, given a new name and a new life by a new owner, catches the scent of the troubled man who previously abandoned her; young lovers become old; estranged couples return to their vows; and those who have died live on in perpetuity in the memories of those whom they touched. The stories in this collection--which have won the O. Henry Prize and the Pushcart Prize, and have been featured in The Best American Short Stories--confirm the promise of a writer who "believes in the power of stories to rescue and redeem people" (Max Liu, Financial Times). A revelatory meditation on trauma and catharsis, isolation and communion, Two Nurses, Smoking reflects the dislocations and anguish of our age, as well as the humanity and humor that buoy us.

"Hans noveller är som svarta diamanter!" Yukiko Duke, Gomorron Sverige David Means skriver noveller. Han skriver så sakligt, så skarpt, så hett att smärtans alla gränser sprängs – vilket bara gör berättelserna ännu känsligare, ännu vackrare. Han jämförs med Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, Alice Munro och andra novellvärldsmästare. Med samlingen Blandade bränder (originaltitel: Assorted Fire Events) – som nu utkommer på Bakhåll i förnämlig översättning av Andreas Vesterlund – fick han sitt stora genombrott i USA. "This is food for the hungry!" skriver Jonathan Franzen.

David Means skriver noveller. Närvarande, påträngande noveller. Han förflyttar oss rätt in i andra människors tankar och känslor, det må vara en distingerad reklammakare på Manhattan, en beslutsam bankrånare i Ohio eller bara en vanlig jäktad småbarnsförälder mitt i vardagen – alltid samma kristallklara närhet. Bakhåll har tidigare gett ut samlingen Blandade bränder (Assorted Fire Events). Här kommer nu en ny kollektion Means-historier – Stället (The Spot) – i tonsäker svensk översättning. "Det här förklarar varför David Means nämns i samma andetag som John Updike." INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY "Så intelligent skrivet att det gör ont. Detta är tidlöst." NEW YORK TIMES Means berättar till exempel om det välregisserade bankrånet där inget ska kunna gå fel eftersom varje kommando, varje gest är genomtänkt och samordnad. Carson har hoppat över disken och är den som håller i säcken som i rasande fart fylls med pengar. Donnie är den som skriker åt bankkunderna att ligga ned på golvet och för allt i världen inte spela hjältar. Berättaren själv står vid fönstret och håller både gatan utanför och hela banklokalen under uppsikt med sin alerta split vision-blick. Men sannolikheten för att den fatala Missen ändå ska hända är aldrig negligerbar för under loppet av de få sekunder som tickar förbi hinner så kolossalt många vanskliga faktorer fluktuera. Tyst-alarm-faktorn, hopblandnings-faktorn, missriktat-hjältemod-faktorn... "Stället" i novellen med samma namn är en plats som Bone påvisar långt ute i sjön. En krusning på ytan avslöjar att det är där dricksvattnet sugs in. Vill man förgifta hela Cleveland är det där man ska hälla giftet. Bone är hallick åt Meg och fixar torskar åt henne, det är vanligen män med byxor med pressveck, småföretagare med framgångsrik firma och irriterande gott om pengar, och det händer att Meg avslöjar vad hon gör med dem, åtminstone vad hon gjort med dem som hittats döda efteråt. "Stället" är också en plats långt nedanför Niagarafallen där vattnet rör sig i en nästan omärklig virvel och ibland står helt stilla. Där flyter kropparna upp. Förr eller senare. "Hans noveller är som svarta diamanter!" YUKIKO DUKE I GOMORRON SVERIGE SVT OM MEANS FÖRRA BOK: BLANDADE BRÄNDER