PRAYING DRUNK

In Kentucky, a man orders a robotic replica of his dead son to try to win back the love of his ex-wife. In Haiti, a dentist angers a couple by restoring their vampire teeth to happy squares. In Tennessee, the rock star son of a missionary burns down a recording studio that used to be a stop on the Underground Railroad. In Florida, a dying man uses his dentures to flirt with his nurse, and his grandson is unable to rewrite the rules of time to bring his uncle back to life. Are the tales in PRAYING DRUNK narrated by a bored angel in heaven, or is the angel himself an invention of the teller? Either way, these stories upend the conventional notion of the American short story. They are, in the words of one early reviewer, "extreme in humor, extreme in sorrowfulness, and 100% individually wrapped masterpieces."

Kyle Minor is the winner of the 2012 Iowa Review Prize for Short Fiction and the Tara M. Kroger Prize for Short Fiction, one of Random House's Best New Voices of 2006, and a three-time honoree in the Atlantic Monthly contest. His work has appeared online at Esquire and Tin House, and in print in The Southern Review, The Iowa Review, Best American Mystery Stories 2008, Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers, Forty Stories: New Voices from Harper Perennial, and Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013. He also writes a biweekly audiobooks column for Salon. His first collection, In the Devil's Territory, was published by Dzanc in 2008.