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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.… (more)
User reviews
As impressive as Means's technique is, I can't help but think that some readers will find these stories too dry by half, and there is a claustrophobic, snow globe quality to some of his work. The author consistently chooses to use five-dollar words even when writing from the perspective of characters that probably wouldn't know. That's an inconsistency that drives lots of readers crazy, but I'm thinking that realism isn't quite what the author is trying for. "Assorted Fire Events" reads like a master class in short story writing where every phrase is perfectly turned and every plot element carefully considered, and readers looking for superior literary craftsmanship will probably find this collection immensely satisfying. Incidentally, the back cover of my copy of "Assorted Fire Events" says that Means teaches writing at Vassar and has published stories in Harper's and the Paris Review. Imagine my surprise.