How Best to Avoid Dying: Stories

by Owen Egerton

In this devilishly clever collection of short fiction, renowned humorist Owen Egerton leads us on a wildly surprising, darkly comic, and often heart-wrenching ride into the terrible beauty of life's end. With razor wit and compassionate insight, Egerton has a crafted a work that brilliantly explores the pain and wonders of life knowing that with the turn of any corner death could be panhandling for your soul.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

183 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2007

About the author

Owen Egerton is the author of the novel The Book of Harold, the Illegitimate Son of God as well as the novel Marshall Hollenzer is Driving and the short story collection How Best to Avoid Dying. He is also an accomplished screenplay writer and commentator for NPR affiliated stations. He is also the co-creator of the award winning comedy hit The Sinus Show which performed for six years at the Alamo Drafthouse Theater, and for several years Egerton was the artistic director of Austin’s National Comedy Theatre. His writing has been featured in Puerto del Sol, Killing the Buddha, Tiferet, Word Riot, and several other magazines and literary journals. Egerton earned a MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State University in 2005. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and two children.

Reviews

[Ellis · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you've a hankering for chilling short stories that will linger in unpleasant ways in your head long after you've put the book down, be at peace & look no further. Egerton can write a pretty nasty little tale. Most of these are no more than three or so pages long, so you're automatically primed to keep telling yourself "Just one more!" and staying up way too late, feeling more and more deeply unsettled as you read. I particularly enjoyed his twist on religion - the lengths that camp counselors would go to in order to gain converts to a Jesus with black teeth who isn't actually the answer, what life was like for Lazarus after he stopped being a miracle & was just a guy who couldn't die (John Connolly wrote an excellent Lazarus story for a zombie anthology that I read back in the day & I figured I'd never read any take on that poor dude that I liked more than Connolly's - but, yeah, this one is pretty sweet too). This is pretty lame, but here goes: I don't always read short stories, but when I do, I prefer them to be by Owen Egerton.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before I retired and had time to read full books, I read a lot of Science Fiction short stories. My standard was the shorter, the better and my favorite was Microcosmic Tales; 100 Sci Fi Short-Short Stories where no story was longer than five pages. The idea of coming up with a plot, characters, storyline, beginning, middle, and end with something significant to say in only a few pages was, to me, the highest standard you could hold an author to.

As I’ve progressed with my reading, I’ve found that given several hundred pages a good author can flesh out ideas, enhance characters, add a lot more meaning to the storyline, and produce a significant work. On the other hand, some authors just waste a lot of ink.

I’ve only recently discovered Owen Egerton - an author that is quickly rising in my personal chart of great Science Fiction authors. In How Best To Avoid Dying, Owen Egerton spins twenty-two tales in only one hundred and sixty pages. This book is very different than the larger works of his I have read and shows the breath and depth of his writing ability.

I will not say that I loved every one of these stories. Some were excellent, some not as good, and some I am not sure I really understood what he was getting at. However, each one was well written, novel, interesting, and thought provoking so, overall, I can highly recommend this book.

The stories in this book cover a very wide gamut. The first story is Waffle, about a retired Waffle House inspector whose wife has died and he is now on his way to move in with his adult daughter. I confess that I have eaten at more than a couple of Waffle Houses but this story opened my eyes to a life there that I had never seen before. Christmas is an erotic story featuring a woman, a man, and a gun - which is not your usual Sci Fi plot. Lord Baxtor Ballsington is about a man’s relationship with his penis and his decaying relationship with his wife. Lazarus Dying is a story about how horrible it is that Jesus abandoned Lazarus to eternal life. And Lish is a story about a woman who thinks that astronomy and poetry are linked and she then meets up with an Asian slam poet.

The writing in each story is tight, the plot lines unique, the characters unusual, and the overall concept is about humans dealing with the eternal life/death struggle. This is definitely worth your time.

[Kathryn Haggard]

You will get funny looks if you read this book on an airplane.

[Ed Erwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book off the library shelf at random. It turns out that is not the best way to find the right books for me.

[Adam Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Owen Egerton is a novelist and a screenwriter known for his dark, satirical humor. His work often touches on religion, as evidenced by his last two novels, The Book of Harold, a modern-day gospel narrative, and Everyone Says That at the End of the World, which riffs on the Judeo-Christian eschatology of the end times.

In this glossy reprint of his first short story collection, How Best to Avoid Dying, lost souls search for meaning in both life and death. In “The Martyrs of Mountain Peak,” counselors at an evangelical summer camp schedule their own deaths to look like gruesome accidents in order to increase the number of campers who will “come to Jesus” in their grief. And in “Lazarus Dying,” John the Apostle and Lazarus continue to live in the 21st Century, working in a copy shop, blessed (or cursed) with immortality by Christ.

The Chicago Tribune says “Egerton is hardly the first to suggest that attention to the raw minutiae of beauty is the closest we get to grace. But he’s the funniest to do so in a long time.” I say there is much we as writers can learn from Dying about our craft.

[Paul Eckert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had this book on the shelf for so long. Glad I finally got around to reading it.

As with any good collection of short stories, the tales in How Best to Avoid Dying are hilarious, sad, and bittersweet, often within the same story, and all manage to tie into the title in interesting ways.

Egerton is at his best when he's focused on the obsessions of everyday folk. "Waffle," a story about a former Waffle House quality control guy who goes to a Waffle House and ruminates on every thing they've done wrong, was one of my favorite. A man's best friend is literally his penis in "Lord Baxtor Ballsington," which causes some peculiar conflicts with his wife. Egerton displays his versatility in "Christmas," a chilling short in which a woman gets her significant other a gun for Christmas and begs him to stick it in his mouth and pull the trigger. "The Martyrs of Mountain Peak" was another favorite and just one example of the ways in which religion itself is a silent character in many of the stories.

I'm looking forward to reading Egerton's other books.

[Tai · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yuuuuhhhhhhhhlllll. This is troubling. I feel dirtied up inside having read this. Don't get me wrong, "disturbing" is one of my favorite genres, but this was pitiful/disturbing. It was Eagleman's Sum without the charm. It was a poor attempt at quirky. This collection of stories lacked any and all meaning to me, and I was searching hard.

All of these stories just dead end and reek of true depression. The plots are not even interesting. I kept waiting for something to flourish, for a story to feel decent enough to be published, but each one simmered between mediocrity and bad taste all the way to the end.

There's no reason for this book to exist. It is a huge miss.

[Absolom J. Hagg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The truth is, I hate giving less than 4 stars to any book. I know how much time and effort the writer had to put in just to get this thing published. At the same time though, some books just don't work for me. In this case, I think the writing is solid but the stories don't add up to emotion. I think each story has a smart premise but gets bogged down in cleverness. I think I'm starting to realize that absurdism (although I'm probably painting absurdism with too narrow a brush here) is just not my thing.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's enough to like in this swarm of stories (18 in all) that swing from the fully ridiculous(like, a penis abandons its owner ridiculous) to the mostly ridiculous (like "I crapped and called it art" ridiculous). I bought it after reading the nearly perfect "Spelling" aloud to my classes, and some here live up to its promise. The "The Adventures of Stimp" and "The Turtle and the Snail" are especially fantastic.

[Jay Olson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say about this book?! It. Is. Great. Owen Egerton's short stories are right up my alley - darkly, almost pitch black, hilarious. Gut wrenching. Layered. My favorite entertainment in any genere is simply that which reflects life. And life is funny, sad, scary, loud, calm and everything at different times and sometimes all at once.

We are all headed toward the same fate - read this book and let's connect before then, shall we?

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much weirder than I ever dreamt, and so so good! I mean, I don't know exactly what I expected....I knew it would be hilarious, because Owen wrote it, but it was so much more than that. Highly recommend this book to everyone except those who are looking for a something that doesn't contain a lot of death.

I think Miss Gobbler is really my favorite character EVER.

[Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The whole collection is pretty funny with some parts among the funniest things I've read. What's especially striking is that some of the stories that made me laugh most also brought me closest to tears. "The Martyrs of Mountain Peak" and "Lazarus Dying" are clear standouts in this respect, with deft handling of religion that manages to point out what's absurd without being mocking.

[Hil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Owen brilliantly ties in themes of death into all of his short stories. Before you dismiss this as morbid, remember that death can come in many forms--a dead car battery, a dying romance, a broken friendship. I highly recommend it. I loaned my copy out and am now afraid I won't get it back.

[Vicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and unique read. I'm not sure I'm deep enough/smart enough to fully appreciate it, but I still couldn't put it down. I actually grew up with the author and he was in my short lived garage band in junior high. I'm glad he found his true calling as a very funny writer.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was exactly what it said it would be, dark and funny. The stories were truly original and I wasn't sure where any would go once they started. My favs were the first one and the one about the religious camp.

[Mitzi Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

After meeting Owen Egerton at the Literary Death Match in San Antonio this month (he was the runner-up), I just had to buy this book. Despite the title, I didn't expect it to be about dying. It was so BIZARRE, but also intriguing, fascinating (sometimes repulsive). I couldn't put it down.

[Faye · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew Owen was amazingly talented, but his book blew me away. Interesting, bizarre stories beautifully written. The pages kept turning and turning. Loved it.

[Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious, gruesome, startlingly creative, and finally, surprisingly, devastatingly beautiful. I don't know what I expected but this was not it. Amazing.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book as part of a Goodreads First Reads Giveaway.

It wasn't what I expected but I am glad that I read this book. The stories were very unique, weird, touching, sad, and beautiful.

[Kevin Mckinnon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wicked and morbidly dark little stories. Reading them is like handling razor blades.

[David Failing · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange. Just strange.

[Zack Quaintance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very sharp, funny collection. Favorite stories: Pierced, The Martyrs of Mountain Peak, and Lord Baxtor Ballsington.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I wrote this, there I said it. Are you happy universe!?

[Will Adams · Rating 1 out of 5]

With so many positive reviews, I feel compelled to add mine in the hopes that it might save someone like me from reading it.

I like short stories. Quirky and dark aren't bad adjectives in my vocabulary. I like social commentary. But these stories, with a couple of exceptions, struck me as sick. I've read books that were disturbing, but in some way enriched my life. Not this book. The writing is clever, but to what end? I seriously regret reading it.

[GG · Rating 2 out of 5]

Little known fact...some of the stories had references to Austin and that's all I have to say about that.

[Les · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found most of the stories disjointed and odd.

[Salty Swift · Rating 2 out of 5]

Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!

[Cypress Mckendrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quirky collection.

[Drew Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit odd.