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A review by essayem
Instructions for a Funeral: Stories by David Means
3.0
Instructions for a Funeral is the fifth short story collection from Man Booker-prize nominated author David Means. This new collection contains 14 previously published stories including “Two Ruminations on a Homeless Brother” (New Yorker, 5/17), “El Morro” (New Yorker, 8/11), “The Tree Line, Kansas, 1934” (New Yorker, 10/10) and the stand-out “The Terminal Artist” (Vice, 6/15). Part-journalism, if it were real, Means tells of the sudden death of a loved one from surgical complications, revealed years later as the probable victim of a serial-killing nurse.
Each story lives as it’s own beast – a testament to Means’ years of practice. In “The Chair” he tackles the tenderness and anxiety of new fatherhood; in “Fistfight, Sacramento, August 1950” a fist-fight unfolds in slow motion and resolves into a life-long love story and includes the hilarious, if awkwardly prioritized, sentence: “Punch me first, you two-bit dirt hopper, toss the first one at me and let’s get this started so I can get home and take a nice, long, warm bath.”
Means’ characters are hardened, sardonic, hopeful and full of worry – sort of distinctly American in their takes on the various situations life has thrown at them. In the titular story, a man leaves instructions for his funeral that reveal a compounding paranoia of organized crime and shady real estate ventures that reminds one of those hasty bad-parent obituaries.
Because there’s no unifying theme, this isn’t the kind of collection you can sit down and read it one sitting and really appreciate. The stories are layered and complex, as they should be, though to run through several might prove exhausting. Some, like “The Tree Line” did read easy until I’d read a paragraph a few times and even then, it wasn’t a favorite; others like “The Terminal Artist” resonated with me quickly. Don’t rush the stories into your own timeline – read and let them linger.
Netgalley provided this copy in exchange for review.
Each story lives as it’s own beast – a testament to Means’ years of practice. In “The Chair” he tackles the tenderness and anxiety of new fatherhood; in “Fistfight, Sacramento, August 1950” a fist-fight unfolds in slow motion and resolves into a life-long love story and includes the hilarious, if awkwardly prioritized, sentence: “Punch me first, you two-bit dirt hopper, toss the first one at me and let’s get this started so I can get home and take a nice, long, warm bath.”
Means’ characters are hardened, sardonic, hopeful and full of worry – sort of distinctly American in their takes on the various situations life has thrown at them. In the titular story, a man leaves instructions for his funeral that reveal a compounding paranoia of organized crime and shady real estate ventures that reminds one of those hasty bad-parent obituaries.
Because there’s no unifying theme, this isn’t the kind of collection you can sit down and read it one sitting and really appreciate. The stories are layered and complex, as they should be, though to run through several might prove exhausting. Some, like “The Tree Line” did read easy until I’d read a paragraph a few times and even then, it wasn’t a favorite; others like “The Terminal Artist” resonated with me quickly. Don’t rush the stories into your own timeline – read and let them linger.
Netgalley provided this copy in exchange for review.