Instructions for a Funeral - Hardcover

David Means's latest stories [Instructions for a Funeral] floored me. These are little machines for thinking and feeling, made of sentences in which the object in the mirror-consciousness-is much closer than it ordinarily appears. -- Jonathan Lethem, author of THE FERAL DETECTIVE

Poetic, insightful, and deeply moving. David Means is one of my very favourite writers. -- Tara Westover, author of EDUCATED

The return of an American master with his finest collection. There is no shortage of heartache here but Means's devotion to the short story form, the sureness of his touch and his sense of balance bring with it an extraordinary consolation. -- Mike McCormack, author of THE SOLAR BONES

Instructions for a Funeral offers fresh proof that David Means is a true master of the short story form. No one else quite hits this particular note, a perfect balance of storytelling and the gliding virtuosity of pure, inventive style. -- Amitava Kumar, author of IMMIGRANT, MONTANA

No one can give voice to the silence of the moment like David Means. These are short stories from the margins, from the edges of the world, the voices of lovers, drifters, cops, Raymond Carver, Kurt Cobain; and they speak of hope and regret, of beginnings and endings, and of the possibilities of now, and then, with spare power, and grace. A beautiful book, and one that catches in the heart. -- David Keenan, author of THIS IS MEMORIAL DEVICE

'The prose is truly cemented in the nation . . . a wonderful collection from a wonderful writer.', STORGY

'A truly virtuosic approach to form that startlingly plays with time, perspective and different narrative frames. It's a perverse delight to follow these moving tales of sad, ruined men and their tragicomic obsessions and continually have the rug pulled out from under you by the formidable intelligence behind them.' -- Adam Welch, Mr Porter

Means' forensic awareness working in tandem with a vernacular at once contemporary and folk ... 'El Morro' is a brilliant fever of a story, reminiscent of Clarice Lispector and Denis Johnson ... With exquisite control and detail, Means pulls up from the moment of occurrence, and twists it, until you are seeing that moment from a vantage point decades into the future, or seeing its formation in decades past. The moment, in this collection, becomes the nucleus around which a life develops ... And the sentences! The rhythm of Means' sentences, their qualifications and adjustments, moves so that the sentences themselves live and evolve in the moment ... in this collection are waves in this great ocean of human experience, and it's rare that fiction reflects this experience of existence with such skill and sincerity. -- Danny Denton, Irish Times

'[There's] a sense of quiet heroism in Mr Means' stories, a sense that, whatever the circumstances and consequences, these stories need to be told, and will be told, emerging in forms that are twisted, or confused, but nonetheless vital.', Mr Porter

David Means's latest collection of American stories confirms his standing as a master of the form . . . Means has established a voice - rigorous and dense and conversational by turns - that is among the most distinctive and affecting in contemporary American fiction . . . The crafted ironies of these stories often put you in mind of the modern American greats of the form, including Raymond Carver, Richard Ford and Tobias Wolff . . . It's a risk doing this, putting your words in the mouth of the master, but as elsewhere here, Means's sentences, and his supple intelligence, prove a match for the task at hand., Observer

Instructions for A Funeral sees the universally acclaimed David Means return to short fiction in a collection of harrowing and personal tales.