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Published May 2010
176 pages
Genre: Short Stories
Publication Information
The Spot is an old blacksmith shed in which a gang of men tweeze apart the intricacies of a botched bank robbery.
The Spot is a place deep in Riverside Park, along the Hudson River, where two lovers walk with a keen sense that their adultery is about to come to an end.
The Spot is at the bottom of Niagara Falls, where the body of a young girl floats as if caught in the tangled currents of her own tragic story.
The Spot lies in the eardrum of a madman plagued by a noisy upstairs neighbor on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
The Spot is a place in a young father’s mind where love, fear, and responsibility merge in the struggle with his son’s potentially devastating diagnosis.
The Spot is in a dusty encampment in Nebraska where a gang of inept radicals plot a revolution.
The Spot is a Depression-era rail junction in Michigan where a young hobo spins the story of his return to a place that reminds him of home.
The Spot is in Oklahoma City, where two homeless girls move amid a memorial of outdoor stone chairs, sitting down and standing up, leaving impressions in the snow on the dark stone seats.
The Spot is the new book by the award-winning, internationally acclaimed author of Assorted Fire Events, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and The Secret Goldfish.
The Spot is a collection of stories by an author who, according to The New York Times, "stands among our most gifted younger writers," a writer whose language, in the words of James Wood, "offers an exquisitely precise and sensuous register of an often crazy American reality."
"Starred Review. There's not an off note to be found in Means's prose, and he proves to be remarkably adept at locating the sublime in the unseemly." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. A virtuosic short-story collection." - Kirkus Reviews
"Starred Review. [An] essential purchase for all academic and public libraries and a perfect choice for summer reading to help provide a bit of a chill." - Library Journal
This information about The Spot was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Phtot: Beowulf Sheehan
David Means is the author of several story collections, including Assorted Fire Events, The Spot, The Secret Goldfish, and Instructions for a Funeral. His novel, Hystopia, was nominated for the Man Booker Prize.
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