We're in Trouble - by Christopher Coake (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This book begins with "We're in Trouble," a suite of three stories that introduces its common theme: love darkening and persevering as it is tried by the cold fact of death. And in the vivid stories that follow, as Coake's unforgettable characters experience love staring at the face of death, it elicits either the best or the worst in them. From a wife waiting for news of her husband's latest death-defying climb to a sheriff thrown into turmoil after his close friend enacts a horrifying murder-suicide, Coake makes us feel the truth of his imperiled characters' lives and transforms it into cathartic art.

With the complexity, depth, and narrative drive of a novel, this extraordinary debut collection is at once suspenseful, empathic, and almost unbearably moving.

From the Back Cover

"Uncanny, clear-eyed . . . [Coake] is wildly engaging as he explores one theme love in the face of harrowing death (or near-death) from seemingly every angle. A-." Entertainment Weekly

From a wife waiting for news of her husband's latest death-defying climb to a sheriff thrown into turmoil after his close friend enacts a horrifying murder-suicide, Christopher Coake s unforgettable characters experience love staring in the face of death. As their love darkens and perseveres, it elicits either the best or the worst in them. With the complexity, depth, and narrative drive of a novel, Coake s extraordinary debut collection makes us feel the truth of his imperiled characters' lives and transforms it into cathartic art. We re in Trouble is at once suspenseful, empathic, and almost unbearably moving.
"Coake has . . . done something both alarming and amazing: He has taken his proximity to mortality's horrors, mined them for their truest nature, married them to a sure hand for storytelling and presented us all with a debut book of stories, We're in Trouble, that is both beautiful in its elegance and merciless in its intensity."--Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
"I've read more than a thousand stories a year for the past eight years and nothing nothing has surpassed the work of Mr. Coake. You will be stunned, you will have tears in your eyes, and you will remember these stories for the rest of your life." Otto Penzler, The Best American Mystery Stories

Christopher Coake lives in Reno, where he teaches creative writing at the University of Nevada.
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Review Quotes

PRAISE FOR WE'RE IN TROUBLE
"Sometimes, when you're reading the stories, you forget to breathe . . . They're beautifully written, and they have bottom, but they're never dull, and they all contain striking and dramatic narrative ideas . . . They're literary in the sense that they're serious, and will probably be nominated for prizes, but they're unliterary in the sense that they could end up mattering to people." - NICK HORNBY, THE BELIEVER
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