Customer Reviews

The Man Back There: Stories (Mary Mccarthy Prize in Short Fiction)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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David Crouse is a consummate artist. His writing is precise, clear, and compelling. Just when you think a story is not terribly consequential, the meaning suddenly comes into focus and the result is a thunderbolt of enlightenment. Crose is magical that way. Story collections this good have too few readers, and Crouse chronicles our times with his lucid eye and ear. Don't pass this up.

David Crouse's new collection The Man Back There is tightly held together by its silences, its mysteries, the reader's implication in each story's resolution. Crouse highlights how meaning is retroactive and searching, a dynamic speculation. As we journey through these stories, we confront our own imaginations: Is the brother in "Show & Tell" really dead? What did the ex-wife in "Posterity" tell in her tell-all book? And finally, we are haunted by our own guess of what was on the video in "Torture Me." These uncertainties reflect the characters' inner probings that are often at a disconnect with what is happening around them--as the title story's Sweet, who seeks to understand his girlfriend by imagining her with her previous boyfriend, or Peter in "The Observable Universe," who only begins to feel for himself by viewing, almost studying, himself as a spectator would. As each character tries to make sense of his life, we fill in what is not known and thereby learn something of our own making. This is a vivid and moving collection of short fiction that I could not put down until I had read it all.

Once again David Crouse deftly delves into the minds of characters down and out, unable to make meaningful decisions, unable to even know themselves. Many are despicable, but Crouse makes them so human this reader can't help but care, empathize, even see a bit of self in those that over-think, struggle to find meaning in their lives, or suffer from making one wrong decision after another. But there are moments of tenderness and forgiveness, too, and maybe this is the real skill of this writer. I especially recommend "The Forgotten Kingdom," about a man who works for a nearly defunct gaming company fielding help calls to its 1-800 line; everything in his life seems to be coming to an end: his mother is dying, he can't seem to stop visiting his exgirlfriend though he doens't love her--or does he? Other favorites: the title story, "The Man Back There," "Show and Tell," and "The Observable Universe." A gripping cast of characters. As good or even better than his first collection Copy Cats. Good for giving as a gift! It's worth waiting for this writer's next book.

These stories are sometimes dark, sometimes disturbing, sometimes funny, sometimes painful, and every single one of them will suck you in from the very first line. I liked Crouse's previous short story collection, Copy Cats, but I loved the stories in this collection and was excited to see that Crouse seems to just keep getting better and better. The characters in these stories are haunted and lost, and as unlikable as some of them are they feel extremely real. Crouse is a master at creating characters who drive their stories and are not just being pushed around by an over-developed plot. My favorites from this collection: The Castle on the Hill, The Forgotten Kingdom, and the subtly disturbing finale, Torture Me.

I love this short story collection. Even more (I think) than Crouse's first collection [...] Why? David Crouse gets people. He gets how complex, layered, and confused we all are AND he manages to put that on the page. You can see what I mean in the title story, "The Man Back There." Both Sweets and Sharon are drawn so intimately that at one point while reading I actually groaned out loud. Crouse describes their inadequacies and wounds so honestly that I actually felt embarrassed for them. I wanted to cover them with a blanket and say to readers, "Okay, stop looking now," even though I couldn't stop looking myself.

So buy this book. Hunker down on a rainy or snowy day when your house is full of shadows. Discover all the places Crouse can take you.

I couldnt put it down. The short stories kept me entertained and engaged for the entire length of the book! The writing is intelligent and thoguth-provoking.

This is another great story collection from David Crouse, focusing on men in trouble who make bad decisions. Although the stories are firmly in the mode of literary fiction, a nearly Gothic darkness sneaks into some of them: a castle and murdered children loom over a dogcatcher's Christmas, the lover of a vanished college professor finds a shallow grave in the woods, and a physical therapist watches a VHS tape with very, very bad things on it. I highly recommend it.

David Crouse's second book takes a careful look at who people are after the climactic action has happened. Following various otherwise stereotypical characters (old congressman, disaffected 20-something, divorced middle-aged man, comic book convention geek), Crouse minimally unpacks how their lives are affected by disturbances (scandal, breakup, murder, violence.) So minimally, even, that the casual reader my forget that there has been a disturbance at all, were it not for the small details that serve as reminders throughout.

Crouse's real strength is giving a weight (almost addition by subtraction) to seemingly flat characters. These people exist in the world, they are impacted by it, as it is by them, evidenced by the quiet wake receding behind them. Further, he is able to tell and not show by giving his characters the ability to say things an omniscient narrator would have said in another work.

As much as this work keeps to itself, a quiet consideration of life in this age, it manages to remind us that in a small way, we are these people. And as such, it asks us how we would respond in these situations.

My usual method of reading short story collections is to take them with me to doctor's appointments, or on the bus. It might take me a month to finish.
David Crouse's collection The Man Back There contains tales linked by male main characters who deal with an emptiness and loss so profound and undefinable, as a reader, I subconsciously shared their need to flail and stumble toward the "anywhere but here." Each story fed the pervasive sense that one's soul can be stripped away if one fails to pay attention, to love, to connect fully with others. The final story tells of a man so disillusioned that his longing for who he once was, or should have been, has turned him somehow to vapor. He can no longer see the reflection of his own decency in the mirror.
The Man Back There is haunting work, recommended to anyone deeply fascinated by the paradoxes of human nature.

David's second collection of short stories is a powerful follow-up to his first and has received the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction for a reason: his characters are real, three-dimensional and complex and, although we glimpse only moments of their existence, they vibrate with humanity even in ordinary, everyday circumstances. David's descriptive power is impressive and his stories are ones that will stay with you long after the first read. They come highly recommended to you by this reader.