MELISSA YANCY READS FROM HER NEW COLLECTION OF STORIES DOG YEARS

Dog Years (University of Pittsburgh Press)

Many of these richly layered stories juxtapose the miracles of modern medicine against the inescapable frustrations of everyday life: awkward first dates, the indignities of air travel, and overwhelming megastore cereal aisles. In “Go Forth,” an aging couple attends a kidney transplant reunion, where donors and recipients collide with unexpected results; in “Hounds,” a woman who runs a facial reconstruction program for veterans nurses her dying dog while recounting the ways she has used sex as both a weapon and a salve; and in “Consider this Case,” a lonely fetal surgeon caring for his aesthete father must reconsider sexuality and the lengths people will go to have children.

Melissa Yancy’s personal experience in the milieus of hospitals, medicine, and family services infuse her narratives with a rare texture and gravity. Keenly observed, offering both sharp humor and humanity, these stories explore the ties that bind—both genetic and otherwise—and the fine line between the mundane and the maudlin. Whether the men or women that populate these pages are contending with illness, death, or parenthood, the real focus is on time and our inability to slow its progression, and to revel in those moments we can control.

Praise for Dog Years

“The smart, intricate, carefully crafted stories in Dog Years reminded me of Lauren Groff’s Delicate, Edible Birds for both their ambition and extraordinary beauty.”—Richard Russo

“Melissa Yancy’s stories make me swoon with recognition. They’re funny and sad in the same breath; they’re incredibly well executed; they’re about the endlessly fascinating machinery of relationships, about the weird intersections of medical technology and human dignity, and about the ways time catches up with everyone in the end. I’ve been waiting a long time for her stories to be collected in a book; Dog Years is cause for celebration.”—Anthony Doerr

Melissa Yancy’s short fiction has appeared in One Story, Glimmer Train, Zyzzyva, and other publications. She is the recipient of a 2016 NEA Literature Fellowship. Stories in Dog Years have won the Glimmer Train Fiction Open, The Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize, and received special mention in the Pushcart Prize. She lives in Los Angeles where she works as a fundraiser for healthcare causes.