Kissing You: Stories - Softcover

Hayes, Daniel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1555973795 ISBN 13: 9781555973797

Publisher: Graywolf Press, 2003

Synopsis

A beguiling collection of stories about men and women, compulsive and loquacious, searching for love in contemporary America

In Daniel Hayes's hilarious debut collection, people disclose too much and risk embarrassment (and more) as they search for partners, love, and sex. Continually stumbling upon obstacles of their own making, they battle freakish obsessions and deep fears-secrets both real and imagined. After a difficult breakup, one woman has visions-not of God or a new boyfriend, but of Bob Hope gently wagging his finger, inviting her to take it in her mouth. A man, intent upon finding the right girl, doesn't understand why stalking has to be such an ugly word. Another woman learns that her fiancé has as much substance as the filling of the Hostess Twinkie in which he presents her engagement ring. And in the title story, one gay man tempts another with false bravado and tall tales of pet iguanas.
Outlandish, romantic, and sexy, the stories in Kissing You are compulsively entertaining. Daniel Hayes provocatively narrows the uncomfortable space between people and lets readers witness the intriguing consequences.

About this title

From the Author:

"Open John Bensko's Sea Dogs to any page and find yourself, despite its familiar coordinates in the American landscape, in an utterly enchanted world. Through the prism of Bensko's one-of-a-kind imagination, ordinary places are endowed with deep mystery, ordinary people blessed and cursed with exquisite pathos, outrageous humor, and vision. These stories are irresistible, their scenes indelible, their characters brought to eccentric life in a few swift strokes, the language so sure and lyrical, so rich with detail and seemingly effortless images, that it seems to constitute an elemental force of its own. A beautiful book by an astonishingly gifted writer with the uncanny ability to see in the chaos of human experience the luminous contours of myth. An authentic original."--Steve Stern

From the Inside Flap:

"Kissing You is an intricately linked collection of stories which, piece by piece, explores different relations of intimacy: between lovers, between pop culture and the consumer, between writer and reader. Hayes breaks down distinctions between public and private realms and, in so doing, could not be more relevant, more provocative, more disrespectful. I admire this book immensely." —David Shields

About this edition

• Publisher: Graywolf Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1555973795
• ISBN 13: 9781555973797
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 184