Description: "The title story, which combines dark comedy and deep pathos, is not only the standout of this volume but also one of the best stories published in recent memory. Adrian has been known as a writer's writer, but with this book, readers would do well to stake their claim."--Radhika Jones, Time "[A Better Angel]...is held forward in the pared beauty of Adrian's unshowy, lambent prose and gives the collection almost a bottomless depth."--San FranciscoChronicle "Mr. Adrian is a gifted, courageous writer -- as demonstrated in his well-received novels, "Gob's Grief" and "The Children's Hospital" -- and with this collection he continues to take far-reaching risks. Unspeakable grief and the innate will to survive create opposing forces in these stories, producing a universe bursting with humor and life."--S. Kirk Walsh,The New York Times "His best work yet . . . Not one of the stories teeters out of control. They are strange, beautiful, and unforgettable. Like Kafka, Poe, and Salman Rushdie, Adrian knows the best way to bring the miraculous to life is to write it realistically."--John Freeman,The Boston Globe "To read Chris Adrian is to take part in the exciting process of watching a talented and original writer gain mastery of his powerful gifts." --Myla Goldberg,The New York Times Book Review "Adrian is interested in illness's altered states, but this doesn't mean he thinks pain is ennobling. On the contrary, throughout his bleak and brilliant work he has been sensitive to the ways grief ravages those it strikes."--Sylvia Brownrigg,New YorkTimes Book Review "Adrian, himself a pediatrician and seminary student, is a lucid, brilliant fortune-teller. He unveils our demons, who, in the wake of their visitations upon these children, reveal something you can only call the face of God."--Tom Chiarella,Esquire "Spirits and demons and a persistent faith populate Chris Adrian's crystalline stories in A BETTER ANGEL (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)...In Adrian's lyrical kingdom...most attempts at intimacy, friendship, and love become something more dark, complex and spiritually wrenching."--Vince Passaro,O, The Oprah Magazine "Adrian is clearly no MFA mill product...He's a pediatrician and a divinity student, and he throws these two fields of human endeavor at the walls with a good bit of fearlessness...[He] dares to use (and re-use) heavily symbolic incidents and character facets, tell the tales in a modest voice, and then challenge himself to make the right combinations of twists in plot and story structure...There's a high percentage of powerful (and often harrowing) stories here."--T.E. Lyons, Louisville Electric Observer "Adrian, a divinity student and a doctor, has a beautiful instinct for finding the deepest chords within his characters."--John Freeman,Star Tribune "Focused otherwise, the haunting energy and supernal visions found in A Better Angel, Chris Adrian's new story collection, could have inspired an occult religion...He sublimely melds the beautiful and the terrible, which makes for a fondness of grotesques reminiscent of the great Southern gothic wirters."--Cheston Knapp,Richmond Times "Adrian is interested in illness's altered states, but this doesn

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