Assorted Fire Events: Stories

by David Means

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.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Americana, The United States Of America

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

David Means is an American short story writer and novelist based in Nyack, New York. His stories have appeared in many publications, including Esquire, The New Yorker, and Harper's. They are frequently set in the Midwest or the Rust Belt, or along the Hudson River in New York.

Reviews

[Paulusque · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ci sono la spazzatura, i clochard, il sangue, la neve. C’è l’Hudson, ovunque. Ci sono Carver e Cheever. C’è la precarietà, in ogni pagina. Estraniante: dunque, perfetto.

[Solistas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Υπάρχουν πολλά πράγματα να θαυμάσεις σχεδόν σε κάθε ένα απ'τα 13 διηγήματα αυτής της παλιάς συλλογής του Αμερικανού David Means. Πάνω απ'όλα όμως, η ατμόσφαιρα που δημιουργεί η πένα του είναι αυτό που ξεχωρίζει ήδη απ'την πρώτη ιστορία, η οποία είναι κ μια απ'τις καλύτερες: το Railroad Incident, August 1995 είναι απ'τη μια η ιστορία ενός νεόπλουτου που βλέπει τη ζωή του να καταρρέει ξαφνικά κ εκκωφαντικά κ απ'την άλλη, μιας παρέας νεαρών που ζουν στο περιθώριο κ προσπαθούν να βρουν κάτι που θα κάνει έστω κ μια στιγμή της ζωής τους αξιομνημόνευτη. Ο Means δεν είναι εύκολος συγγραφέας, γράφει πυκνά, χρησιμοποιεί μακροπερίοδο κ slang εκφράσεις και απαιτεί τη συγκέντρωση του αναγνώστη. Αλλά αυτός ο μικρός κόπος αξίζει. Όχι πάντα αλλά στην πλειοψηφία των περιπτώσεων σε ανταμοίβει γιατί φτιάχνει με εντυπωσιακή ευκολία ζωντανούς χαρακτήρες που βιώνουν μια σημαντική στιγμή στη ζωή τους, συνήθως μια απώλεια κάποιου είδους.

Οι ιστορίες έχουν αρχή, μέση κ τέλος αλλά αφήνουν αρκετά περιθώρια για σκέψη με αποτέλεσμα το Assorted Fire Events να είναι ένα βιβλίο που θέλει το χρόνο του αφού είναι σχεδόν εξαντλητικό να διαβάσεις μονοκοπανιά 3-4 διηγήματα. Οι ιστορίες που θα μου μείνουν πραγματικά αξέχαστες είναι (τουλάχιστον) δύο: το Interruption που ξεκινάει με μια πλουσιοπάροχη γαμήλια δεξίωση που διακόπτεται από έναν πεινασμένο άστεγο κ καταλήγει στην Μάλαγα δύο χρόνια αργότερα όταν ο γάμος έχει διαλυθεί κ ο άστεγος έχει πεθάνει καθώς κ το υπέροχο Tahorah που διαδραματίζεται στην εντατική ενός νοσοκομείου κ ολοκληρώνεται με φανταστικό τρόπο σε ένα σπίτι Εβραίων που θρηνούν το χαμό της νεαρής κόρης τους. Από εκεί είναι κ το παρακάτω απόσπασμα που είναι αντιπροσωπευτικό του συγγραφέα, ο οποίος καταφέρνει να στήσει μια τόσο αληθινή εικόνα μέσω μιας παρομοίωσης (making their skin smooth as whole milk) που θα έπρεπε κανονικά να φέρει τα αντίθετα αποτελέσματα:

"He tried to remember what she looked like and got a vision of her dark red hair, wide oval face, smooth very white skin, and her lively laugh. He got a vision of her at the cabin they rented upstate, down by the water, toking on hand-rolled smokes and drinking beer until they ended up in the bed, a rattling iron thing, with their clothing off and only that pale summer twilight, half there, half gone, making their skin smooth as whole milk; such wonderful smoothness, he recalled, especially at the flat of her belly going down, down to the pubis bone, the hard ridge on both sides, and with the breeze like that, not too hot or too cool coming through the screens"

Κοντά σε ποιότητα (μαζί με το εναρκτήριο κομμάτι που ανέφερα παραπάνω) είναι κ τα What They Did (όπου ένα κοριτσάκι πεθαίνει εξαιτίας ενός εγκλήματος οικολογικής φύσης), The Grip (που έχει μια έντονη southern αισθητική) και The Widow Predicament (απ'τις πιο ιδιαίτερες στιγμές της συλλογής). Ειδική μνεία αξίζει όμως κ στο What I Hope For, το οποίο είναι ένα έξυπνο εύρημα του Means για να κοιτάξει τα μάτια το πιο σημαντικό πρόβλημα που αντιμετωπίζουν συγγραφείς σαν κ αυτόν: όπως λέει κ ο Richard Ford στον Αθλητικογράφο που διαβάζω τώρα, οι ιστορίες που βυθίζονται όλο κ πιο πολύ στο σκοτάδι μπορούν πολύ εύκολα να γίνουν ένα ασήκωτο μεταλλικό κέντημα που κανείς δεν θα θέλει να διαβάσει. Το τρισέλιδο αυτό διήγημα ξεκινάει με τη φράση "I don't want anyone to die in my stories anymore" κ συνεχίζει με την ευχή από εδώ κ πέρα να ζήσει μια λαμπερή ζωή γεμάτη ποδηλατάδες στην εξοχή. Κ σε γενικές γραμμές την αποφεύγει αυτή την παγίδα (οι ήρωες του όμως συνεχίζουν να πεθαίνουν).

Όχι πάντα βέβαια. Οι δύο ιστορίες που κλείνουν τη συλλογή (μια εκ των οποίων δίνει κ τον τίτλο στο βιβλίο) μου φάνηκαν αδιάφορες αν κ υπάρχει η πιθανότητα να είχα πια κουραστεί. Το ίδιο ισχύει κ για το The Gesture Hunter που βασίζεται σε μια εξαιρετική ιδέα αλλά δε νομίζω ότι κατέληξε κάπου κ το Coitus που μου φάνηκε βαρετό (αν κ έχει μια απίθανη σκηνή σεξ).

Εν κατακλείδι όμως, το Assorted Fire Events είναι μια συλλογή που βρίσκει εύκολα θέση στο ράφι με τα βιβλία των καλύτερων αμερικανών διηγηματογράφων του 21ου αιώνα κ όσοι ενδιαφέρονται γι'αυτούς θα απολαύσουν κ με το παραπάνω αυτόν τον εξαιρετικό γραφιά.

[Mec · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ultimamente sto leggendo tanti libri che alternano dolore e fallimento e questo non fa eccezione.
I singoli racconti hanno ad oggetto un aspetto particolare dell'inettitudine esistenziale e la lettura d'insieme rende il quadro completo.
Means mi ha preso per mano e mi ha accompagnato in questa discesa con un uso sapiente della lingua e dei meccanismi narrativi. È decisamente uno che sa fare il suo mestiere. 

[Patrick Neylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It begins with two words: "THE DECLIVITY..." and in the stark brutality of those capitals - one word small and common, the other strange, self-consciously artful in its unfamiliarity - the reader feels the beads of sweat prinking into glistening existence on his soon-to-be-furrowed brow, for by those two words and those two words alone, he knows he is in the grip of Great American Literature: remorseless and unforgiving in its brooding power drawn from the primeval heart of that young, dark continent, yearning to be read aloud in that slow, laconic, Lake Wobegon accent that makes almost any prose sound profound, as long as the adjectives are as rich as tar, the metaphors as obscure as an Indiana railrodder and the sentences long, impossibly long -- 250 words in places -- homecoming quilts of subordinate clauses stitched lovingly together with straining semicolons, curt m-dashes and 'parentheses' -- in an affected Jack Kerouac stream of consciousness that makes you ask how something however well executed could be called ground-breaking if it harks back to a style that came into vogue 50 years ago and has antecedents an ocean and a century away in James Joyce; full of attention to the minutest detail; full of nothing BUT detail in fact, psychological in its intensity, looking not at events but at those mundane moments that call to mind -- crystallize in fact -- those defining moments of death, sorrow and yearning long-past, and all performed with art and style; the beautiful tension of holding together such an impossible sentence structure without which Great American Literature is simply impossible -- the Wile E Coyote running on air; or the infinite poise of Muhammad Ali, frozen in time the intense anticipation of the blow that never fell -- could never fall -- would spoil the moment -- but the beauty of the possibility in its grace that makes the world gasp, hold its breath -- and Means succeeds, he does it, just, not quite triumphantly but beautifully, artfully, gracefully, as the cascade of syllables becomes a crescendo of art - O THE DECLIVITY, THE DECLIVITY! ... the reader gasps at the audacity, pretentiousness perhaps, yet is suspended almost frozen in that beautiful moment, then is released from the spell, reaches for his coffee and approaches the next word.

[Alessia Scurati · Rating 3 out of 5]

Episodi incendiari assortiti credo sia il libro che ho iniziato di leggere più volte, poi non ci riuscivo mai. Partivo in treno, lo portavo, ma finivo a parlare con qualcuno; ero d’assistenza gli scritti, lo portavo, poi finivo a girare per l’aula; ero a casa, lo aprivo, poi finiva sempre che dovevo leggere qualcosa prima. Insomma: ha collezionato un sacco di rughe, manco fosse un libro che ho letto e riletto con piacere. Invece è stato scaricato e ne porta i segni.
Dice la quarta di copertina (spiegazzata e scolorita): Un incrocio genetico tra Houellebecq e Joyce Carol Oates. Io non ci ho trovato molto di nessuno dei due. Da un certo punto di vista non è negativo. Non so perché io abbia letto la quarta di copertina, in effetti.
La verità è che il titolo della raccolta mi è piaciuto subito. Episodi incendiari assortiti. Intrigante.

È una bella raccolta. Ci sono un paio di racconti molto molto molto belli.
Ce ne sono un paio che io avrei buttato, ma io di professione non faccio l’editor.
C’è una generale coesione di tematiche, tono, ambiente, che rende la lettura omogenea.
Mi piace il setting geografico.
Non mi convince una cosa: la scrittura volutamente ingarbugliata dell’autore. Evocativa. Evoca. Ok. Infatti a volte colpisce a fondo. A volte, però, mi fa l’effetto opposto: tipo che a furia di aggrovigliare lo gnommero il lettore fa prima a tagliare e passare oltre. Non un gran pregio.
E ora arriva la botta finale.
Lo ammetto: C’E’ UNA COSA CHE MI HA FATTO SBROCCARE.
Come sapete, da 14 anni io ho una vita pendolare tra Milano e Granada, Andalucía, España. Io quella regione la conosco come le mie tasche.
Cioè, nella mia vita probabilmente sono stata 1 volta sola a Cinisello Balsamo, ma mille in ogni paesino sperduto tra coste e monti andalusi. È pazzesco e pure un po’ innaturale, se ci penso. Mi scuso coi vicini di Cinisello che tra l’altro da casa mia dista 15 minuti.
Comunque, il punto è un altro.
Quando scrivi, devi sempre sceglierti un’ambientazione che conosci bene per essere credibile. Ora: io, evidentemente, non ambienterò mai niente a Cinisello Balsamo, semmai a Sesto San Giovanni che conosco molto meglio. Il fatto è che ci sono cose che se sei un turista non noti o noti e pensi che siano così, ma non lo sono. Esempio: dialetto andaluso, famoso nel mondo hispano per essere ipercontratto e mangiarsi metà delle consonanti che uno spagnolo standard pronuncia. Il nostro autore, a un certo punto fa comparire nel centro di Madrid un cameriere che parla un Meraviglioso lento spagnolo andaluso. Ciccio, un accento andaluso lento lo conosci solo te, secondo, in un albergo del centro Madrid uno che parla come un gitano di Siviglia non lo prendono se non con una clausola che lo renda muto, terzo, gli andalusi sono sempre camerieri, puttane e donne delle pulizie nella storia della letteratura, mai un terrateniente con tutti i nobilazzi che ci ritroviamo, eccheppalle i luoghi comuni. David Means a Sesto San Giovanni avrebbe trovato un cameriere con un meraviglioso accento napoletano che gli parlava di pizza e mandolini, sicuro. Poi ci sono errori nei toponimi. Poi ce ne sono altri che nemmeno mi va di menzionare.
Risultato: voto finale ribassato di una stella e ciao.

Qui le votazioni ai racconti:
Incidente ferroviario, agosto 1995 ****
Coito ***
Quello che fecero *****
Il lamento di Sleeping Bear ***
La reazione ***
La presa *****
Quello che spero io ****
L’interruzione ****
I travagli della vedova *****
Tahorah ****
Il cacciatore di gesti ****
Episodi incendiari assortiti ****
Il taglialegna ****

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Means stares straight into the parts of life we prefer to leave in the dark, and this collection is a haunting, beautiful result of that bravery.

I picked up this collection of short stories after reading Means’ story “Two Nurses, Smoking” in the New Yorker a couple weeks ago. This collection feels like “Two Nurses”’s divorced uncle. The stories are driven by the same obsessions with loneliness, imperfect love, and blue-gray, semi-abandoned small towns on the Hudson River. However, while “Two Nurses” is hopeful, finishing on the upswing of an unlikely love, these stories tend to focus on life’s downswings. They dwell in moments of despair—the self-doubt of a cheating spouse, the mood swings of a grieving widow, the haunted guilt of a mother who outlives her daughter.

These stories feel so much like a winter on the Hudson, the very setting in which so many of them take place. They’re full of loneliness, but in being placed together, the stories bring each of their lonely characters together in the common struggle of living a life in contemporary America. The characters are lost, stuck in a living purgatory, which isn’t as repulsive as it may sound. Instead, the collection draws you in, invites you to bask in the uncertainty we all feel but don’t dare to acknowledge.

[Gary Armstrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sheer scope of a novel allows authors to develop plots and craft three dimensional characters that can stimulate readers; the short story writer, denied this luxury, needs to be an exquisite artist to achieve audience engagement: David Means embodies this excellence in an astounding first collection of stories.

The title of this work, Assorted Fire Events, alludes to one of the pieces contained, although it can serve as a characterisation of the work as a whole, as many of the stories deal with those significant events in life, often destructive and dramatic, that define who we at that time, and, whatever our intentions, continue to intrude on our existence long after their occurrence. This sense of being imprisoned by the past is most effectively articulated in "Coitus" and "Sleeping Bear Lament", where characters engaged in everyday activities are suddenly hit by memories of traumatic events. In "Coitus" Means' skilful writing is able to establish from the onset a profound sense of unease even before we know anything of the characters or their situation, as he depicts a sex scene with factual detachment. Whilst the initial thought is of a relationship in decline, as the parties' robotic motions deprive the act of any intimacy, Means shows that it is the male characters guilt over two separate events, a past bereavement and betrayal, that leads to the sense of disengagement, although, with Means' subtle writing, the sense of a relationship doomed can be inferred. In the confines of this short piece the reader's curiosity can not be totally satisfied, as a tidy resolution is not forthcoming, but it is a testament to Means' abilities that in the space of 14 pages, the reader is stimulated to trace the permutations of the tale beyond the printed page.

"Sleeping Bear Lament", is a beautiful and moving reflection on a class outcast, Sam. Although set in America, the sense of a school pupil who is treat as pariah because he is impoverished, or in some senses different, is a universal experience that cannot fail to resonate with the reader. In this story the narrator is seeking redemption for some distance misdemeanours committed against the outcast, to try and purge himself of his past, and project this better, fully formed adult onto the present and seek "forgiveness" from Sam. Whilst the sentiments of the narrator can be appreciated, there is a feeling that his efforts will ultimately be futile, and his guilt will never be assuaged.

With the possible exception of "The Grip", an account of a man's pride of his physical endurance, and the comical "What I Hope For", which seems to parody tales of relentless loveliness, the stories are saturated with melancholy, with characters tormented, or confronted, by tragic events. "Railroad Incident, August 1995" is a disturbing depiction of urban brutality, where a once seemingly successful man collides with the dispossessed. "What They Did", is tale of corporate irresponsibility, where the feelings of victims are starkly contrasted with the emotional detachment of business organisations.

In short, this is an exquisite, beautifully crafted collection of stories, which deal with the tragedies and emotions that are a mark of human existence. Means, in economical, but profound, prose is able to establish characters and events that generate empathy, sympathy and sadness. It is no exaggeration to suggest that Means, if he can maintain this standard, should be in the pantheon of great American short story writers.

[Ulf Bergström · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sublime.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

2007 notebook: 1st story is so kick-ass you have to put it down and take a breath. Other stories not as good, good but wandering, too self-conscious for me at times (eg he dismisses a character: we won't hear from her again).

[Mircalla · Rating 4 out of 5]

è una rilettura, ma mi sono accorta che me li ricordo benissimo...tutti...:-P

[Erik Tanouye · Rating 1 out of 5]

Grad school fiction about deep things like Vietnam and death.

[Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting exploration of where you can take short stories in terms of point of view, structure etc. It felt a little forced at times, though; A literary experimentation; An opportunity for the writer to demonstrate how unique, quirky and elegant his characters' view of the world was (although if/once I was in their heads it all felt too similar in tone and eloquence and failed to allow me to engage with the character on the emotional level). Most of the stories somehow left me feeling dissatisfied - hence the three stars.

Saying that, there are some to-die-for descriptions. For example, this one from "The Grip" (although it's somehow ill-fitting with the 20 year old hard-up character who's observing it):

"The night took on vast, grand proportions; the night was liquid and runny, stretched taught until it was no more than a thin strand of hot white burning his foot and palm."

Another beautiful description, although one that seemed just a little too flowery for the character (from "Tahorah"):

"He got a vision of her at the cabin they rented upstate, down by the water, toking on hand-rolled smokes and drinking beer until they ended up in the bed, a rattling iron thing, with their clothing off and only that pale summer twilight, half there, half gone, making their skin smooth as whole milk, such a wonderful smoothness, he recalled, especially at the flat of her belly going down to the pubis bone, the hard ridge on both sides, and with the breeze like that, not too hot or too cool coming through the screens"

Also, this one from "The Interruption" was lovely:

"Inside the shelter, headlights bled like long sizzling lines of melting ice across the milky Plexiglass"

I definitely learned a lot from David's ability to perfectly capture gestures with simple descriptions:

"Even in the firelight you could see that they were all four skinny in that deprived way, knotty with muscles and the blue-grey shadows of various tattoos. The one who spotted him had just taken a long draw from a quart bottle of beer and was gasping for breath.
Jesus shit, he spoke softly, wiping back a long black clump of hair from his face.
The fuck's this? another said, parting his legs a bit as if to hold steady against an oncoming force. His jackboots crunched on the ballast. He pressed his hands flat against each side of his waist. One of the others stationed himself to the side, running his own palms over the smooth-shorn surface of his scalp in a repeated motion half fidget and half habit."

There are a few stories that really stood out to me in this book. I liked "The Gesture Hunter", although it reminded me of Aimee Bender, and I suspect she would have carried it off in a more enchanting, satisfying way. Still, there were some lovely moments in it:

"A man and a woman embraced by grief. Embracing. The man in a sports coat and blue jeans with that stooped expression, slightly bent beneath some gravitational weight of his own grief; the woman in a long violet dress tightening then loosening against her hips as the breeze rippled the fabric - those hips I'll never forget, I suppose, jutting lightly against his own, as much a part of the embrace as anything. She bent and shifted with the great forces against her the way someone on the deck of a boat must adjust himself to the changing horizon - it was right there before me, the gyroscope of their pain holding the gesture, making it as pure as carved stone, petrified forever, the brass rails holding up the canopy overhead, green-and-white-striped. Suddenly a blinding purplish brilliance lit the front of the parlour afire."

and this one (about the Gesture Hunter's baby son in the bath):

"...the most beautiful sight in the world. The water boiled up around his fist. The slick oily light slide off his skin. His smiling face looked up at me, and his tiny fleck of hair lay pasted to his scalp while my wife, behind me in the hall, softly folded a towel over her arm and outside the summer air moved, tainted with lavender."

The weirdness of "The Widow Predicament" and the experimental way he spins out hypothetical scenarios was really fascinating
The story that most gripped me was "Assorted Fire Events". The description was incredible, the emotional, primal connection between men and fire - I loved it! There's so much wonderful stuff in this story. Just one example:

"The plot of fire is nebulous and serene, wildly fanatic and calm at the same time, trailing up curtains and along the undersides of carpet padding, taking its own sweet time and then conversely becoming diametric, logarithmic, taking big gulping gorging sweeps of the floorboards and runners - until it sings sweetly the fantastic house-burning lament, blasting out of the windows and licking the roof eaves."

In conclusion, I guess I'd say this book is really worth a read if you're a serious writer. David is certainly talented and there is much to learn from here.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing talent! Why had I not heard of this author?

When a local book store had a closing-down sale in 2013, I went in and bought every unread book on my 3,000+ list of great works of literature. [Sadly, I learnt of the sale only a week before they closed, and the Classics shelves had already been mostly emptied, but I did end up buying over 100 books, many of which I was unfamiliar with]. This short story collection was on the list, having earned its place via two major U.S. literary awards – it won the 2000 LA Times Book Prize and was a finalist for the 2000 National Book Critics Circle Award – but since then it certainly hasn't been a reading priority for me, as its current score of 80.3% ranks it a modest 1,825 out of 4,225 on my current Great-Lit list.

In any case, the one bright spot of lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic has been the extra reading I've been able to do during my enforced leisure time. Having recently completed a course on writing short stories, I've been working my way through the short story collections in my library to see how the best writers do their job.

And so to David Means....

This collection opens with Railroad Incident, August 1995. Wow, what an opening! Means not only knows how to construct an engrossing story and to include the fine detail that makes the narrative come alive, he adds a poetic layer that sparkles with cleverness. Take this paragraph as an example:

To the guys who spotted him a quarter mile later he came out of the hazy air like a wounded animal, nothing but a shadow down the tracks moving with a strange hobble that didn't seem human. There were four of them, their own shirts off, nursing a small fire of twigs barely producing flames but lots of whitish smoke slinging in the heavy air. Even in the firelight you could see that they were all four skinny in that deprived way, knotty with muscle and the blue-grey shadows of various tattoos. The one who spotted him had just taken a long draw from a quart bottle of beer and was gasping for breath.

Impressive! But for me the most outstanding feature of this story – indeed, of nearly all the stories in this collection – is the way Means takes brief detours from the plot to flesh out the setting, the characters, the back stories, their choice of clothing, their musical preferences, their workplace or domestic problems. And not just the main actors, but the cameo appearances: "the Reverend Simpson of the Alabaster Salvation Church of Haverstraw", or the nameless engineer of the freight train who has "a good job even if things weren't going the way they should in the world. It was a good, good job."

There are thirteen short stories in this collection, and they cover an impressive range of topics, characters and situations, although there's a unifying theme of the difficulty of the human condition. This is not a book for the comfortably middle-class reader who hurries the children into the SUV so that they don't see the homeless man and end up asking awkward questions about the wet spot on his pants or why he was talking to himself.

There's Coitus, in which the man's mind drifts to other places when it should be firmly anchored by the flesh; or What They Did, a single paragraph eight pages in length about the legacy of a shoddy property developer; or a friend's disappearance in Sleeping Bear Lament. There's the two-page What I Hope For that opens with "I don't want anyone to die in my stories anymore."

One of the grimmest stories (and there are plenty that could be described as grim) is The Interruption, which chronicles the intersection of two very disparate groups by way of a tedious wedding reception: there are the newlyweds and their guests and the DJ, and outside in the snow drifts is a group of homeless men trying to survive the coldest night of a harsh winter. David Means is ruthless in his portrayal of the best and worst of humanity.

This was a truly exceptional collection of short fiction: powerful, vivid, disturbing, realistic, sparkling with wit, poetic, uncompromising, beautiful. It deserves more than the score my algorithm gives it, but 80.3% is still great literature and qualifies as five stars. I look forward to reading more of David Means - especially The Secret Goldfish: Stories which was shortlisted for the inaugural Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award in 2005.

[Mateusz Buczko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Current read. Mixed feelings. I figured I was overdue for some fiction and opted for this book of short stories, acclaimed as one of the best in recent times. Tbh I'm not sure I agree. The author certainly knows how to paint a picture, but his writing style, full of long sentences that just keep going like streams of words burbling and cascading on and on, piling description upon description, gets a bit tiresome. So does the repeated theme of death, which combined with this meandering, melancholic, monologue style of writing makes for depressing reading. Short stories should have impact of course, and these certainly do, but at the same time it feels a bit easy to grab some grim topic like suicide or a fatal accident or a fatal bashing (that's like 3 of the first 4 stories) and leave the reader feeling reflective, even uneasy. I was impressed at the end of the first story but by the third or fourth, it was all getting a bit old both stylistically and thematically. Eloquently told, these stories would be a decent accompaniment for a long bus or ferry journey on a moody grey day, but right now I can't really be bothered with any more of 'em... although unfortunately, the Book Depository stork is yet to drop off my next purchase.

[dv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il fluire della scrittura di Means ha qualcosa dell'arborescenza, come se da un ramo o da uno stelo continuassero a fiorire, nel corso di frasi e paragrafi, nuovi germogli che approfondiscono dettagli e possibili storie che sfuggono ai più e che l'occhio e la penna dello scrittore sanno valorizzare, costruendo una struttura sempre più densa e ricca. Oppure, magari, porte su porte che si aprono e chiudono su diversi ambienti, illuminati in diverso modo. Questo quanto allo stile, che trovo davvero ammirevole e perfetto per la forma del racconto. Quanto ai contenuti, c'è una forma di malessere in queste storie, dalla prima all'ultima imbevute della presenza della morte. E dunque i racconti non riescono a conquistarmi, resto distante allontanato dai contenuti laddove lo stile mi aveva conquistato. Mi chiedo se Means ha anche scritto d'altro: questo è il suo secondo libro di racconti che leggo - riguardando le mie note di dieci anni fa vedo che anche allora ero stato colpito dalla scrittura da un lato, dalla violenza delle storie dall'altro.

[Claudia Piepenburg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like other readers have commented, the first time I heard of Means is when I read one of his short stories in a recent New Yorker issue. I liked the story, it was sad and rather dismal but I appreciated his writing style.

I still appreciate how he writes, I like how he uses punctuation, a lot of em dashes and colons and semi-colons, it forces the reader to pay attention and moves the story forward in a way that short, terse sentences would not. That said, I found these stories to be so depressing, so difficult to read in many instances that I can't give the book more than three stars. I'm not a fan of "Hollywood endings", fairy-tale finishes to stories that leave you smiling because you're so happy with the way things turned out for the protagonist, but the stories in this collection are just too dark, too menacing, too cruel, too ugly.

[Sara Comuzzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Means regala al lettore racconti crudi, spesso con una brutta fine o un brutto inizio. Nel senso che molti personaggi muoiono o se rimangono vivi non e che le cose gli vadano troppo bene. C'è molto dolore in queste pagine, la violenza della società moderna, la precarietà dei rapporti umani. La scrittura di Means è di una delicatezza eccezionale. Uno stile poetico (difatti leggendo la biografia, l'autore ha un Master in poesia) che dona descrizioni da diversi punti di vista ed è emozionale ed imparziale nello stesso momento.

Una prosa scorrevole, ricca di vocaboli interessanti, mai prolissa, mai noiosa ma sempre innovativa senza sfociare nel mondo ultra-surreale di un George Saunders.

Davvero una bella sorpresa.

[chiara_librofilia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Era da tempo che volevo leggere questa raccolta di racconti del tanto acclamato David Means - più volte paragonato al caro Raymond Carver - e ho iniziato a farlo con una certa curiosità che, purtroppo, si è arrestata già dopo le primissime pagine poiché non sono mai riuscita ad entrare nel mood di questi racconti e soprattutto nella scrittura di David Means che, sinceramente, mi è apparsa solo piuttosto lenta, prolissa e con una certa ossessione nella cura dello stile tanto da apparire più come un esercizio di stile invece che un qualcosa pensato, concepito e fatto con il desiderio di comunicare e di trasmettere realmente qualcosa.
Sicuramente scritti benissimo ma troppo artificiosi e privi di essenza per i miei gusti. Peccato!

[Lucas Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that been on my too read list long enough that I cannot recall how I first heard of it or its author. I became really interested in dirty realism/k-mart realism and short fiction in general when I was at the end of high school beginning of college and that spun out into being on the hunt for short story collections that focused on grim and mundane subject matter. This collection fits the bill. Such control from the author. The juxtaposition of wealth and squalor in a number of stories. The brief dreamscapes and imaginings. The hints and connection between the stories that doesn't ever really coalesce, but kept me locked in. This very brief collection as great. "The Grip," especially. Right in the guts.

[Chr*s Browning · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only "The Widow Predicament" and "What They Did" really made any impression on me, the former more so than the latter. Having the opposite problem here that I did with Amy Hempel - her stories are so lightly written that the impact eludes me, while Means's stories are overly dense and the impact is lost somewhere among all his words. I'll give another collection a go for the sake of it, but I don't have high hopes.

[Alec]

#1
Again a faint breeze came. He moved forward along the tracks, leaving a pad print full of blood behind him on each tie. Ahead of him the tracks curved farther into the darkness; to his left and overhead, the steel girders and chutes of the stoneworks.

#6
The night took on vast, grand proportions; the night was liquid and runny, stretched taut until it was no more than a thin strand of hot white burning his foot and palm.

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Siamo individui sgraziati e allibiti, noi cacciatori di gesti, resi folli dall'insaziabile desiderio di un altro luogo, di un'altra epoca, di un senso di movimento."

Semplice liricità che colpisce il lettore in modi crudi, portati alla luce dal fuoco dell'animo. Interessante raccolta, lo stile è ciò che maggiormente ho apprezzato, raramente si può leggere uno scrittore che è consapevole di saper scrivere, e lo fa con precisione e cura.

[Kimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every time I finish one of these David Means collections I just want to run up and down the street screaming DAVID MEANS over and over until I get arrested and maybe people look him up to see what the big deal was

[Patrizia Zamboni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alcuni racconti sono intensi, toccanti e la scrittura fluida ti fa entrare nel cuore del racconto.
Altri non mi sono piaciuti, Means si involve su se stesso e la sua scrittura sembra un mero esercizio di stile

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

More serious subjects than I usually like to read but still interesting.

[Matt]

We

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories feel like excavations of how a mind works. I won’t go on about them, because one reading is not enough.

[Giuseppe · Rating 1 out of 5]

Noioso, tutto troppo artificioso, ricercato che diventa puro esercizio di stile a tratti interessante ma fine a se stesso.

[Alex Telander · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do not be dissuaded by the title, Assorted Fire Events is not a bunch of stories about vaguely interesting fire events; no, it’s much more than the latter. David Means brings us thirteen new stories, all different and unique, making a very interesting read.

“The piece he stepped on, from an old malt liquor bottle, was as jagged as the French Alps, the round base of the bottle forming a perfect support for the protrusion . . . it went into his heel cleanly, cutting firmly into the hard pad, opening a wound that sent him falling sideways.” So reads the opening story of the collection, entitled “Railroad Incident, August 1995.” This is a story about a man who has been cheated on by his wife with one of his dependable friends. A common story you might say, except this betrayal drives him to insanity, where he begins walking aimlessly into the ghettoes of New York. There he is attacked by a group of hoodlums, leading to his ultimate demise. But on this doomed journey he recounts his supposedly happy married life and how things often aren’t what they appear to be.

The second story, “Coitus,” is unlike any other I have read, and that’s really what makes a writer good at his job. The story opens with a couple beginning with the early stages of foreplay, leading to their inevitable lovemaking. But as the main character thrusts away in waves of pleasure, he begins recounting past instances of his life, like the tragic death of his brother, hoe he feel guilty about certain aspects of it. The story is brought to any amusing conclusion with his partner questioning what that ‘far-away look in his eyes” is.

“Arno listened, half concerned for what Roy was plotting and half concerned for the split in his lip which had opened up and seemed to carry within a chasm of pain too wide for such a small crack in his flesh.” “The Interruption” is a story about a hobo dared on by his friend to gatecrash a wedding, shocking all within with his shocking presence. In “The Widow Predicament” a widow must decide what to so with the video of the honeymoon lovemaking. In the Pushcart Prize-winning story, ���What They Did,” suburban sprawl forces people to make drastic decisions that they may later regret.

“The light throb of the pump going; the faint pulse of the device in his chest cavity opening up with air and deflating next to his heart like a bird nesting between his ribs.” “Tahorah” – where a man suffers a devastating accident and must deal with the consequences, along with analyzing the events and repercussions of his life.

The backdrop for most of these stories is suburban and downtown New York, the current residence of the author, which helps bring a certain kind of perspective to each individual story; the surroundings dark and bleak, remnants of the past that cannot be changed, and of a future that cannot be stopped or averted. In Assorted Fire Events one is transported into a type of fantasy world, except the events within all all-too-possible, and either have occurred or quite possibly could occur to any one of us.

Originally published on March 5 2001 ©Alex C. Telander.

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[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Assorted Fire Events is discursive, psychological, and macabre. Death haunts every story except the brief and self-conscious "What I Hope For" (first sentence: "I don't want anyone to die in my stories anymore."). Dialogue is not bound within quotation marks, and we're as likely to experience thoughts or an omniscient leap across time as the spoken word. It's a slow volume, but a thin and rewarding one.

I didn't care much for the first story ("Railroad Story") and the second, "Coitus,"an inner consciousness during the act of coitus, was accomplished, but didn't hook me, so I put it aside. Stick with it. "What They Did" is more conventional, and chilling.

"Sleeping Bear Lament" is by far my favorite piece in the collection. I cried. It's beautiful and heart-wrenching and inspired.

"The Reaction" is a well-written, interestingly-structured slice of life of an aging country doctor. "The Grip," another gem, is one night (and the aftermath) of a train-hopping hobo in the Depression.

"The Interruption" follows the sordid and distressing life of a group of homeless men and the life of one of their killers. Good, but hard to read. "The Widow Predicament" is a strange study of a recent widow and her new lover. I liked it.

"Tahorah" I liked less. It is set in a hospital, with an angry interruption from another patient of the mourning of an Orthodox family. The ending is perfect, however; and foreshadows the next piece, "The Gesture Hunter," which is the most out of place story. It almost smacks of the dreamlike quality of magical realism, but the ending is so stark and surprising it tore me out of the dream.

"Assorted Fire Events" is indeed assorted and while parts are excellent, it's too ramshackle to hold together. "The Woodcutter" is short, sweet, sad, and an good choice to end this book.