DATE OF DISAPPEARANCE: ASSORTED STORIES by M. Allen Cunningham
"Superb, well-balanced and deeply seductive … demand[s] a lingering rereading."
-The Oregonian
"[Date of Disappearance] is the most beautifully produced object of bookery
that I've seen in a long time...The stories in this collection are long, inviting a type of engagement you don't experience often these days...Sensual and dense ...Sometimes you find a great book because it was recommended to you. Sometimes you find a great book because your finger is on the pulse of the literary zeitgeist. Sometimes you're just plugging holes, books from the so-called canon you've been meaning to get to. My encounter with Date of Disappearance is none of those. It is the best short story collection I've had the pleasure to stumble upon since Maile Meloy's Half in Love, and that was years ago."
--Evan Morgan Williams, author of Thorn
"Unforgettable. I find myself still musing about Cunningham’s characters long after
their stories have concluded. ... Ten literary gems."
—Ann Ronald, Bookin' with Sunny LitBlog
The ten distinctive stories assorted here trace the disappearance of things physical, spiritual, or poignantly unnamable from various characters' lives. An evangelical minister sets out to win back the trust of his flock and save his "fallen" teenage son, meanwhile tormented by his own bedroom sins; a lively centenarian languishes in the confines of a retirement home, longing for a youthful life of freedom; disease leads a bereaved woman toward long-avoided reconciliation; and a taxidermist studies life and death through the artful models he creates.
Relevant and emotionally resonant at every turn, Date of Disappearance presents a panoply of private conundrums, as Cunningham's men and women, fathers and sons, youths and elders all face, with humor or disquiet, the blessed and bewildering challenges of living.
