Assorted Fire Events: Stories

Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: "Wow I wish I could write like this guy!" This phrase must be on the lips of every fine writer practicing his/her craft today. David Means is a miracle man - short stories that feel like novels, so well are they developed and loaded. Yet none is more than 20 pages. And the subjects he chooses to make fictions.....this man has one of the richest imaginations in the business. e is totally unafraid of any subject that others may avoid as being demeaning, or too tough, or so bizarre that noone would be interested. A man's description of a life as a drifter all focused on the way he holds on to moving trains (The Grip), or a man who obsesses on Gestures observed and sought out. The disparity between the rich and the poor, the gnarly conditions of dwelling as a misfit. He plumbs the bottom of the world barrel for characters we'd never think to think about, much less care about and finds reason for molding stories that defy our ability to put them down. For this reader, David Means has created a series of String Quartets - the first subject melody may seem simple but the expositions and variations and permutations are like galaxies we've never known. I think this man is a genius. Haven't been this excited about a writer in a while. Dare it, do it, revel in it. But buy this book!

Rating:
Summary: A new york reader
Review: A very good compilation of stories. Mr. Means seems to have a particularly acute perception of the downtrodden and the seamier episodes of life. The author seems to be at his best--when he describes (in graphically illustrative language) the most despicable of scenarios. I like this book--because I like the grittier side of life. This author is very adept at capturing these dark moments.

Rating:
Summary: Fine writing, slightly morbid
Review: As the other reviews here suggest, Means is a wonderful lyricist and handles language with admirable nuance and grace. The best pieces here -- such as the Chekhovian "The Interruption," which features the unlikely intrusion of a hobo on a Hilton wedding reception -- wed sly social commentary and convincing inner monologues of desperate people. Means also writes well about regret:"The Reaction," where a neighbor's move, and other images of departure, lead into a doctor's mourning for the figurative loss of his daughter, and the lovely "Widow Predicament," in which a homemade sex tape is an instrument of mourning for a more literal loss, stand out here. My only reservation with this collection is its overreliance on catastrophe and gore; violent deaths seem to be added to each story like exclamation points, sometimes necessary, sometimes not. I for one would like to see Means apply his considerable narrative skills to other, quieter, but equally significant "events."

Rating:
Summary: Flashes of graphic violence!
Review: Assorted Fire Events is an excellent debut collection of short stories. Means is at his best in powerful, gritty stories looking into the seamy world of the dispossessed, the destitute, the misfits, the disaffected, outsiders without a foothold in society. During the depression years, hoboes travelled across the U.S.A. in, on top of, under or between the boxcars of freight trains in futile search of work and an unlikely offer of food, often slipping or falling to their death under the wheels from the numbing cold, wind, weariness or drifting into sleep. Such is the predicament of the hobo in The Grip, clinging precariously to a single handhold on the end of a boxcar as the train traverses the night desert...The dynamic for The Interruption, derives from the pivotal moment in the story where two opposing worlds collide, the world of the destitute and the world of the affluent, when a hungry hobo intrudes into a flash wedding reception.

Mean's world is a world where violence and death are commonplace: Two full-blooded stories, the extremely violent Railroad Incident, August 1995 and the harrowing title story, Assorted Fire Events deliver uncompromising, graphic, gut wrenching descriptions of violence and death that some may find hard to stomach. Railroad Incident, August 1995 describes the mindless violence inflicted on an injured man limping along railroad tracks - and left for dead across the rails - when he stumbles on "a bunch of rubbish", four beer-swilling, dope smoking, wasted youths while Assorted Fire Events illustrates in scorching prose, the destructive power of fire in all its ferocity, in an assortment of conflagrations, some evil in intent. Outstanding stringent stories! Highly recommended!


Rating:
Summary: A new york reader
Review: David Means allows his reader to begin to comprehend what utter disposession from the world and from oneself would be like. A process like this allows for pure emotion so inundated with pain and suffering, that so few of us ever allow ourselves the luxury - it would be all too engrossing. Means' stories are not only a deadly ride through the railyards - they reflect what so many of us feel but cannot express.

Rating:
Summary: A very exciting collection
Review: David Means's work first came to my attention in Harpers Magazine. It was clear from the work I saw there that he was a force to be reckoned with, but I had no idea what proportions this impression would take on! I didn't know about the rest of his stories, the best of them having appeared elsewhere. I was very impressed, especially by the title story. An amazing achievement in belle lettres. If you consider yourself a reader of literature, David Means is a must. He is a master of the short story, the likes of which having not appeared in a long, long time; maybe not since Faulkner.

Rating:
Summary: Undisciplined Talent
Review: These are ambitious stories because they try and have a lot to say, and they say it in a way that is idiosyncratic. These two aspects are both the reason the collection has been well received by critics, and also the reason that they don't always succeed. The first story (Railroad Incident) serves to illustrate both the strengths and the shortcomings of the rest. A bereft husband (not only has his wife been killed in an auto accident, she'd also left him for his friend) who has also suffered a possible bankruptcy is walking the railroad tracks looking for solace. However, Mr. Means muddies the waters by telling us that her clothes are still in her wardrobe, her washing still in the hamper. In due course he is beaten up by a gang of youths who frequent the tracks. The point of view bobs and weaves from that of the man, those of the youths, an omniscient narrator who intrudes with reflections on, for example, the uprooted shuffling up dust that can be seen from passing jets. The overall effect, for this reader at least, is that these stories, in trying too hard to cram in all the observations and viewpoints, end up being nobody's stories. Furthermore, the sentences are often so convoluted (I suspect Mr. Means has been influenced here by Richard Ford, but without the latter's skill to make them work) that sense is frequently lost.
These stories have the potential for greatness, but they require a firm editor before they can achieve it.