How To Survive Overwhelming Loss & Loneliness in 5 Easy Steps and other stories

by David James Parr

The risk-taking men & women in this new collection of 11 shorts are bound together and torn apart by their desire to make sense of life’s breakups and breakdowns. An eccentric losing her grip on reality tightens her grip on weaponry while Speed Dating; a vigilant son searches for clues to his mother’s past in To Make a Short Story Long; a Thanksgiving get-together in Manhattan goes cold turkey for a group of recovering addicts on The Island of Misfit Toys; a murderess awaiting her sentence conceals a pregnancy and its conception in Surrender, Dorothy; and, in the title story, a desperate man tries miscellaneous pills, miscalculated sex and a misguided self-help manual to get over an ex-love. Navigating surprising twists and surreal turns, these vivid, volatile, vulnerable characters are all bent on survival, diving for change in the deepest of wells.

228 pages, Paperback

Published September 12, 2016

About the author

David James Parr was born on a cul-de-sac in Columbus, Ohio, grew up on a poultry farm in rural Pennsylvania, and now lives on the island of misfit toys that is Manhattan.

He is a two-time winner of The Tennessee Williams Fiction Award and two-time Finalist for The O'Neill National Playwrights Competition. His novels VIOLET PEAKS, BEAUTY MARKS and MEN IN SHORTS are available on Amazon and Kindle, as well as his short story collection HOW TO SURVIVE OVERWHELMING LOSS & LONELINESS IN 5 EASY STEPS: STORIES and PERSONAL TRAINING: POETRY & EXERCISE TIPS.

www.DavidJamesParr.com