Don't Mind Me
Brian Coughlan
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
The short stories in Brian Coughlan's Don't Mind Me dig deep into what it means to live in an increasingly connected, but isolated modern world that demands far more than we can possibly hope to provide. A couple with financial problems encounter an over-bearing madam in her hell-hole bed & breakfast; an aged wastrel must travel across the country to the aid of his ailing guardian angel; a hurrying man falls inexplicably and is forced to confront the fragility of his body and the choices that were made for him. What begins as tragedy trips into farce, the realistic somehow turns mystical, and viewed through a prism of irony these delightfully off kilter stories offer surprising, often skewed and witfully unsettling impressions. Don't Mind Me is a collection that follows no rules and leaves no tracks.
Product Details
Price
$19.00
$17.67
Publisher
Etruscan Press
Publish Date
May 14, 2024
Pages
152
Dimensions
6.0 X 9.0 X 0.27 inches | 0.39 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9798985882483
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About the Author
Brian Coughlan lives in Galway City, Ireland. His first collection of short stories Wattle & daub was published by Etruscan Press in 2018 and was a Foreword Indies Finalist that year. He has published stories with The Honest Ulsterman, Fictive Dream, and Storgy--to name but a few.
Reviews
"Coughlan's stories wake us into the half-sleep of the familiar unknown, a sense of being late for an appointed fate. A writer of prodigious gifts, Coughlan combines irony with elements of surrealism to create a distinctively mordant and troubling, and, for all that, not unhumorous vision of the world."
--Colum McCann "In Don't Mind Me, Brian Coughlan's new story collection from Etruscan Press, narrators tell their straightforward, often calamitous, stories with great calm and control. But...there's always an uneasy feeling that something's coiled just beneath the surface. Like one of those fabric snakes compressed into a can labeled MIXED NUTS."
--Sara Pritchard, Help Wanted: Female "Darkly humorous and absurdist, Don't Mind Me entertains and enthralls throughout. Peculiar characters and situations populate these unexpected tales and with unique precision, Coughlan wittily reflects some of the disillusionment, disappointment and desperation of modern living."
--Elizabeth Reapy, Skin and Red Dirt Brian Coughlan's second collection of short stories, Don't Mind Me, conjures surreal worlds and frequently hapless characters facing into a deluge of bizarre hurdles and catastrophes. By turns quirky and disquieting, with a dark, droll humor tempered with a humane perspective and insight throughout, these stories, intriguingly plotted and fiendishly envisaged, are consistently witty, surprising, and poignant in turn.
--Arnold Thomas Fanning, Mind On Fire
--Colum McCann "In Don't Mind Me, Brian Coughlan's new story collection from Etruscan Press, narrators tell their straightforward, often calamitous, stories with great calm and control. But...there's always an uneasy feeling that something's coiled just beneath the surface. Like one of those fabric snakes compressed into a can labeled MIXED NUTS."
--Sara Pritchard, Help Wanted: Female "Darkly humorous and absurdist, Don't Mind Me entertains and enthralls throughout. Peculiar characters and situations populate these unexpected tales and with unique precision, Coughlan wittily reflects some of the disillusionment, disappointment and desperation of modern living."
--Elizabeth Reapy, Skin and Red Dirt Brian Coughlan's second collection of short stories, Don't Mind Me, conjures surreal worlds and frequently hapless characters facing into a deluge of bizarre hurdles and catastrophes. By turns quirky and disquieting, with a dark, droll humor tempered with a humane perspective and insight throughout, these stories, intriguingly plotted and fiendishly envisaged, are consistently witty, surprising, and poignant in turn.
--Arnold Thomas Fanning, Mind On Fire
