Assorted Fire Events: Stories

PRAISE FOR ASSORTED FIRE EVENTS

“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.”

— The New Yorker

“An astonishing collection. Each story possesses the density of detail, the social sweep and force of a realist novel. What most situates Assorted Fire Events within the realm of greatness (and there is no lesser word for the achievement here) is Means’ ability to develop dazzling, skillful narratives that enrich and deepen stories of lives that matter … These stories are never less than beautiful, rich in language, feeling and sensibility.”

— San Francisco Chronicle

“Remarkable … A book that not only will educate short-story writers on the craft of the story for years to come but can also move present-day readers to surprising tears … Assorted Fire Events [has] a place in my lineup of memorable fiction.”

— Jonathan Levi, Los Angeles Times Book Review

“A worthy shelf-mate to Denis Johnson and Tobias Wolff … Means writes with sure-handed emotional intensity, conjuring brushfires of the psyche in lushly sensual detail.”

— Margot Mifflin, Entertainment Weekly

“Clarity, in addition to an abiding preoccupation with catastrophic loss, is a signal trait of Means’ fiction … Despite their contemporary setting, Means’ stories have an elemental quality with echoes (some more explicit than others) of Greek myth and tragedy … To the patient, attentive reader they bring a deep, enriching sense of the gravity of life.”

— Laura Miller, Salon

“Unlike anything I’ve ever read. They’re not exactly experimental, but written from an indefinable perspective … There’s something else at work, an almost mythological component, which allows these stories to reach back and forth through time and memory until they become oddly universal … Assorted Fire Events strips life down to its very essence.”

— David L. Ulin, Newsday

“Means expertly crafts thirteen intensely incisive explorations into the depths of the American mind … These wonderfully penetrating stories are lamentations for the dead, the unknown, and the unloved. In his search for the perfect gesture Means creates just that, beautifully articulating the human capacity for pain and for revelation.”

— Review of Contemporary Fiction

“Astonishing … Reinfuses the genre with Raymond Carver— school skill … Means’ mixture of sentences — some snug and others rolling — furnishes his stories with an unmistakably original texture and voice … Captures the trying moments of life … where pain sears the heart and dupes the mind.”

— The Kansas City Star

“The voice that Means has created is altogether a knowing one and yet is simultaneously aware how absurd contingencies can at any moment crash into the assurances of omniscience … Perfect pitch.”

— Bloomsbury Review

“Means has an impeccable ear for poetic cadence, and throughout [these] stories, he conjures men and women whose hearts and minds are roiling with fiery torment … Means is a deft stylist, who occasionally affects a Carveresque economy.”

— The Village Voice Literary Supplement

“Stunning … Establishes Means as a formidable new writer. It is one of the most transfixing, memorable books to hit the stands this year.”

— Time Out New York

“In the assured manner of such unsettling storytellers as Banks or Wolff, Means ushers us toward knowledge with command and verve.”

— Publishers Weekly

“Very compelling. This powerful collection should appeal to Rick Moody and Stephen Dixon fans.”

— Jim Dwyer, Library Journal

“These stories are wonderfully moving. Means’s characters become richly alive; their brutal, sad memories are expressions of linguistic and emotional complexity, of the perverse and compelling states of mental order that give dignity and beauty to life. Here is a book that accomplishes a paradox: the impression of wholeness and solemnity produced from lives that fall to pieces.”

— Donald Antrim

“Evoking the stories of Nathanael West and Flannery O’Connor, Means beautifully combines American classic and gothic traditions in these literally hair-raising, literally spine-tingling, stomach-lurching tales.”

— Carolyn See

“Each story speaks for itself, has its own voice, and sears while it entrances, going much deeper in situation and character-probing than most stories being published today. Means is an accomplished, skillful, intelligent, strong storyteller and stylist.”

— Stephen Dixon

“I love these stories; upon first reading, one is aware of the brilliant density of the writing; then something happens. The stories fly past the language they are composed of, up into another realm of meaning, illuminating as lamps in dark windows. ‘The Reaction’ justifies owning the collection, but then every story is like a separate jewel.”

— Paula Fox

“These stories are so richly textured you can practically feel them with your fingertips as you read them. With elegant skill, Means creates worlds of longing and tragedy and then illuminates them gently, one corner at a time.”

— Aimee Bender

“These are grave, important stories inflamed with compassionate expressions of what bewilders a man, what torments, grieves and amazes him.”

— Christine Schutt

“Assorted Fire Events is one of the best American collections of the last ten years. Means’s 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