David Means's The Secret Goldfish (2016) is a collection of fifteen stories, primarily set in the post-industrial American Midwest, exploring themes of decay, loss, and the complexities of human relationships. The title story centers on a neglected goldfish, Fish, whose deteriorating tank reflects the disintegrating family dynamics surrounding him. The mother, struggling with a failing marriage and the aftermath of her father's abandonment, parallels her own life with the fish’s persistence in the face of neglect. The rest of the stories in the collection delve into darker themes, including death, addiction, disability, and emotional turmoil, often ending in hopelessness. Means also experiments with narrative structure, playing with perspectives and formats to explore the nature of storytelling itself.
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