Furnace - Softcover

'Wayne Price is a natural - one of those writers destined to be so from their arrival in the world. He has a natural understanding of people (what divides and what connects), and a natural ear for how they speak. This is a terrific debut collection of short stories, only proving how complete an author he already is.' Ronald Frame, author of The Lantern Bearers, Permanent Violet and Bluette Wayne Price celebrates ordinary lives where people can find themselves trapped in a confused and often terrifying present. These carefully constructed, honest stories capture a moment or event that will reverberate, revealing the ways dignity and stoicism help those who do not see themselves as victims endure feelings they are unable to describe or understand. They also herald a significant new arrival. Carl MacDougall, author of The Devil and The Giro, The Lights Below and The Casanova Papers 'These keenly observed stories probe fatherhood, sexuality, displacement and the unfathomable strangeness of the other, offering no easy solutions. Many are resolved with a Zen-like pulling away from the foreground action to contemplate a broader natural order or to reach for a universal, resonant image... And they always linger in the mind long after reading.' Brian McCabe, author of The Other McCoy, A Date with My Wife and Zero

In evading an ingratiating unofficial guide, a hapless backpacker seals his fate. A woman undertakes a pilgrimage to where her boyfriend died with another girl. A young man abroad resists returning home for crucial medical treatment. A summer worker is drawn into a menage a trois with a colleague and his boss. From the scorched hillsides of Morocco and heat of a Californian summer to the ferocity of the Spanish afternoon and discomfort of a Scottish heatwave, Wayne Price's characters sweat under the glare of both the sun and their author's forensic gaze. 'This is a heraldic collection. The short stories of Wayne Price are of both incandescent restraint and dynamic range; many of these seemingly quiet tales rise to that supreme level: namely some of the best short stories written anywhere in recent years.' Alan Warner, author of Morvern Callar, The Sopranos, The Man Who Walks and The Stars in the Bright Sky 'Wayne Price is one of the most impressive writers of his generation. Like Raymond Carver, he is as accomplished a poet as he is a short story writer, and the two disciplines complement each other perfectly. He has the poet's eye and ear allied to a gift for spare narrative, and that is a powerful combination. He is one of the few writers I know for whom the comparison with Carver is not fanciful - he really is that good, and this first collection marks the arrival of a major talent.' Alan Spence, author of Its Colours They Are Fine, The Magic Flute, Way to Go and The Pure Land