In his award-winning second collection, David Means explores the fragility of those things that we cherish most. His incomparable, distinct voice-often wildly humorous, always engaging-has led the New York Times to call Means "one of our most talented younger writers." Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Driven by long, majestic sentences, Means's second story collection (after A Quick Kiss of Redemption) explores the oft-misguided ways in which desperate people make contact with each other or with themselves, giving shape to primal desires in a perpetually surprising manner. A young transient in "The Grip" jumps a train, but he's stuck between cars and his only handhold is a small piece of metal. So he braces himself there for an entire, freezing night, hallucinating that his dead mother helps him to maintain his grip. The vagrant semihero of "The Interruption" wanders into a straightlaced wedding reception, willing to make a spectacle in order to get some food. The moving title story veers between autobiography and fiction as it informally catalogues fire-related disasters: an adolescent thug burns a dog alive, a pyromaniac torches houses for sheer pleasure. The narrative offers a sensory and mesmerizing experience of fire, expounding on the sound of crackling flames, the look of WWII flamethrowers on film or the "plot" of a fire's blaze. Means footnotes this story with coy asides that can be mawkish and semiconfessional: "This is horrible, tragic fact. It made the Times," he says about his aunt who set herself on fire. There are a few more reflective short pieces, such as "The Woodcutter," a portrait of a Vietnam vet whose frustrated desire for territorial conquest drives him to chop wood frantically and then eventually to commit suicide. "What I Hope For" is a mood piece in which a couple on vacation eavesdrop on a neighbor. In the assured manner of such unsettling storytellers as Banks or Wolff, Means ushers us toward knowledge with command and verve. 18,000 first printing; 5-city author tour. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

A child drowns after falling into a hidden creek through collapsing concrete. A hobo hangs on for dear life between freight cars. A dying man is so annoyed by another patient's grieving relatives that he tears himself loose from life support to scream at them. Means's characters generally live on the margins of society or are struck by tragedy and trauma. Even during sex, they are haunted by their pasts. At one point, the narrator of "What I Hope For" laments, "I don't want anyone to die in my stories anymore." But that story is an evanescent two pages long, and in the very next piece, a homeless man is beaten to death for crashing a wedding reception. What keeps these stories from being utterly depressing is that they are all so very compelling. This powerful collection should appeal to Rick Moody and Stephen Dixon fans. Recommended for most public and academic libraries.DJim Dwyer, California State Univ., Chico Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

David Means's stories have appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, Bomb, The Antioch Review, The KGB Bar Reader, and a dozen other publications Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Railroad Incident, August 1995	p. 1
Coitus	p. 19
What They Did	p. 33
Sleeping Bear Lament	p. 43
The Reaction	p. 57
The Grip	p. 69
What I Hope For	p. 81
The Interruption	p. 83
The Widow Predicament	p. 105
Tahorah	p. 123
The Gesture Hunter	p. 139
Assorted Fire Events	p. 153
The Woodcutter	p. 163

Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.