num_pages: 227
description:  The stories in A Better Angel describe the terrain of human sufferingillness regret mourning sympathyin the most unusual of ways. In Stab a bereaved twin starts a friendship with a homicidal fifth grader in the hope that she can somehow lead him back to his dead brother. In Why Antichrist? a boy tries to contact the spirit of his dead father and finds himself talking to the Devil instead. In the remarkable title story a neer do well pediatrician returns home to take care of his dying father all the while under the scrutiny of an easily-disappointed heavenly agent. With Gobs Grief and The Childrens Hospital Chris Adrian announced himself as a writer of rare talent and originality. The stories in A Better Angel some of which have appeared in The New Yorker Tin House and McSweeneys demonstrate more of his endless inventiveness and wit and they confirm his growing reputation as a most exciting and unusual literary voiceof heartbreaking magical and darkly comic tales. 
language: English
title: A Better Angel
publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux