Man V. Nature: Stories

by Cook, Diane

  For journal encouragment, inclusion, and making-it-better edits: Meakin Armstrong, Cathy Chung, Case Kerns, Annie Liontas, Christopher Cox, Michael Ray, Rob Spillman, Meg Storey, Sigrid Rausing. Thanks to the University of Louisville Creative Writing program and Rick Simmons for championing the Calvino Prize.

  To the New England Literature Program staff and students for helping me build foundations under these air castles.

  To my agent, Seth Fishman, for guidance, enthusiasm, wisdom, and calm. To my editor, Terry Karten, for soulful reads and patience. And to the entire hardworking Harper team.

  To my dad for being encouraging, skeptical, and awestruck at the right times.

  And, to Jorge Just, my first reader, teammate, and best friend. Till the end of the world.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DIANE COOK’S fiction has been published in Harper’s Magazine, Tin House, Zoetrope: All Story, Guernica, and elsewhere. Her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times Magazine and on This American Life, where she worked as a radio producer for six years. She earned an MFA from Columbia University, where she was a teaching fellow. She lives in Oakland, CA.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  CREDITS

  Cover design by Richard Ljoenes

  Cover artwork: illustration courtesy of The Advertising Archives (man); © archideaphoto/istockphoto (column); © Andrew Frederick (water)

  COPYRIGHT

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  MAN V. NATURE. Copyright © 2014 by Itzy. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Versions of the following stories have been previously published:

  “Moving On” in Tin House

  “The Way the End of Days Should Be” (as “Bounty”) in Harper’s Magazine

  “Somebody’s Baby” in Salt Hill Journal

  “Marrying Up” in Guernica

  “Flotsam” in Redivider

  “The Mast Year” in Granta

  “The Not-Needed Forest” in Zoetrope: All-Story

  FIRST EDITION

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  ISBN: 978-0-06-233310-0

  EPUB Edition OCTOBER 2014 ISBN 9780062333124

  14 15 16 17 18 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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