Works by
David Crouse
(Writer)

• The Man Back There: Stories (2008) -- 2007 Winner Mary Mccarthy Prize in Short Fiction
  In her introduction to The Man Back There, Mary Gaitskill writes simply, "I chose these stories because they made me feel. . . ." The reader of David Crouse's collection is bound to agree, but the reasons are not easily explained. Crouse crawls inside the heads of a dozen male protagonists and tells us how they think. They are not always likeable. They are often losers-their thoughts hurry ahead or dawdle behind, disconnected from what little action occurs around them.
  
  And yet, somehow, we wince for the dog-catcher who crashes his ex-wife's Thanksgiving dinner in "The Castle on the Hill." We sympathize with the latch-key kid who pillages toys in a dead boy's closet in "Time Capsule." And in "The Long Run," we find it hard to condemn a ninety-two-year-old senator trying to salvage his career after his ex-wife publishes a scandalous tell-all book about his life.
  
  In this deceptively quiet collection, the truth is something that simmers up through what is not said. A hero is a man who saves himself from himself, who placates his temper with self-awareness and, most importantly, self-forgiveness. The Man Back There is a feat of empathy and razor sharp vision.

• Copy Cats (2005) -- Winner 2005 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction
  Featuring seven stories and a novella, David Crouse's powerful debut collection depicts people staring down the complicated mysteries of their own identities. "Who are you?" a homeless man asks his would-be benefactor in the title story. On the surface it's a simple question, but one that would stump many of the characters who inhabit these carefully rendered tales.
  
  In the edgy novella "Click" Jonathan's ongoing photo-documentary of a prostitute exposes how little intensity remains between him and his fiancée, Margaret. While Jonathan is plagued with doubts about his motivations and abilities as an artist, Margaret is worn out by her obligations not just to her needy husband-to-be but to all the men in her life. In "The Ugliest Boy," Justin develops an odd friendship with Steven, his girlfriend's brother. Steven was disfigured by fire in a childhood accident. Justin bears wounds more deeply hidden. The two forge a strange bond based on their anger and pain.
  
  Crouse's stories often involve people trapped on the margins of society, confronted by diminishing possibilities and various forms of mental illness. The junior executive in "Code" worries about his job-and his sanity-amid a sudden and wide-sweeping corporate layoff. A manic-depressive father and his teenage daughter dress as vampires and embark on a strange Halloween journey through their suburban neighborhood in the darkly humorous "Morte Infinita." In "Swimming in the Dark" a family gives up on itself. Shredded slowly over the years since the accidental drowning of the eldest son, the remaining family members seek their own separate peace, however imperfect.
  
  The men and women in Copy Cats are unwilling and often unable to differentiate reality from fantasy. Cursed with what one of them calls "a pollution of ideas," these are people at war with their own imaginations.

See also:

• The Dark Horse Book Of The Dead (2005)
  Anthology including works by David Crouse, Eric Powell, Evan Dorkin, Guy Davis, Jamie S. Rich, Kelley Jones, Mike Mignola, Todd Herman, and others.