Description

Book Synopsis

Finalist for the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Prize

A new collection of stories by David Means, a visionary master of the form (The Observer).

Two nurses meet in the hospital parking lot to share a cigarette. They flirt and imagine a future together. They tell stories of patients lost and patients saved, of the darkest corners of human suffering and the luminous moments that break through, even here, in the shadow of death.

In David Means's virtuosic new collection, time unfolds in unexpected ways: a single, quiet moment swells with the echoes of a widower's complicated marriage; a dachshund, given a new name and a new life by a new owner, catches the scent of the troubled man who previously abandoned her; young lovers become old; estranged couples return to their vows; and those who have died live on in perpetuity in the memories of those whom they touched. The stories in this collectionwhich have won the O. Henry Prize and the Pushcart Prize, a

Two Nurses Smoking

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    A Paperback / softback by David Means

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      Publisher: St Martin's Press
      Publication Date: 12/09/2023
      ISBN13: 9781250872517, 978-1250872517
      ISBN10: 1250872510
      Also in:
      Anthologies & Short Stories

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      Finalist for the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Prize

      A new collection of stories by David Means, a visionary master of the form (The Observer).

      Two nurses meet in the hospital parking lot to share a cigarette. They flirt and imagine a future together. They tell stories of patients lost and patients saved, of the darkest corners of human suffering and the luminous moments that break through, even here, in the shadow of death.

      In David Means's virtuosic new collection, time unfolds in unexpected ways: a single, quiet moment swells with the echoes of a widower's complicated marriage; a dachshund, given a new name and a new life by a new owner, catches the scent of the troubled man who previously abandoned her; young lovers become old; estranged couples return to their vows; and those who have died live on in perpetuity in the memories of those whom they touched. The stories in this collectionwhich have won the O. Henry Prize and the Pushcart Prize, a

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