![]() "Vows" features another widower looking back on a marriage marked by his infidelity. In the title story, a male and female nurse form a romantic bond as they travel the mid-Atlantic region in a trailer that contains a "kidney pounder" machine and share stories of their pasts. The stories are formally inventive, and the lenses through which characters are seen aren't always conventional, as with "Clementine, Carmelita, Dog," told from the perspective of a "middle-aged dachshund with a short-haired, caramel-colored coat." The dog describes the grief of his widowed owner, Norman, before a stranger, thinking the dog is lost, takes her home. These 10 stories are set in and around upstate New York and feature protagonists quietly tending to scars that life has inflicted upon them. ![]() Death, loss and the ravages of mental illness aren't the ingredients for light entertainment, but they make for a memorable reading experience in the exceptional story collection Two Nurses, Smoking by David Means ( Instructions for a Funeral). ![]()
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