During his tenure at TC, Edward Booker worked as a Returns
Processor, Gift Wrapper, Bookseller, Buyer, LoDo Store Manager, and Buyer
Manager. He learned the ropes from master
booksellers, Laura, David, Wendy, Nancy, Dennis, Joan, Tara, Yolanda, Gregario,
Christine, Gerald, and Nicole. He also
served stints at Family Christian Stores in Englewood, Colorado and Half Price
Books in Round Rock, Texas where he was the Nostalgia buyer. He can now be found recommending books at the
Herndon Branch of the Orange County Library System in Orlando, Florida. You can friend him and follow all his latest
reads on Good Reads. And you will also find him in BTC as often as we can get him to write up reviews for us. We are delighted to have him back at TC, at least virtually, and we think you'll going to like him too. His reviews will show up as "Where's Booker?", given the fact that he moves around quite a bit.
In the hectic, technology driven world, the short story can
be one of those bite size guilty pleasures.
After a day at work where dinner, a sitcom, and bed can follow one after
another pretty quickly, the short story provides an opportunity to be whisked
away, albeit for a shorter period of time than the novel. Trust me on this and pick up Battleborn, the
debut collection by Claire Vaye Watkins.
The backdrop for Watkins’ stories is Nevada and the
West. The dynamic landscape figures
prominently in every story and in the lives of her characters as they adapt or
struggle against change.
In “Ghosts, Cowboys”, Claire traces the history of Reno,
Nevada from silver mining and nuclear bomb testing to the ranch her father
allowed studios to use for Western films.
While Claire struggles to find her own way, relationship wise,
professionally, she is constantly reminded of her father’s encounter with the
notorious, modern day outlaw, Charles Manson.
On a superficial level, people want to know her, about her father and by
association, what Manson was like. This
is less than six degrees of separation at its worst.
“The Last Thing We Need” is a series of epistles written by
Thomas Grey to Duane Moser after he finds the remnants of a car accident
outside the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada.
The letters are unanswered, but Thomas imagines what could have happened
to Duane. The car happens to be the same
make as the one used in an attempted robbery of a gas station where Thomas
worked as a youth during a graveyard shift.
The swarm of grasshoppers imprints this scene both in Thomas’ memory and
the reader’s.
Two teenage girls, aching to escape the mundane, small time
life take a reckless trip to Vegas in “Rondine Al Nido”. They pretend to be girls older than they are
to a bunch of guys which inevitably leads to the cliché, “What Happens in
Vegas, stays in Vegas.” There is an
allusion to 9/11 near the end of the story and evokes the self destructiveness
of everyone’s personal tragedies.
“The Past Perfect, The Past Continuous, The Simple Past” is
the story of several characters at the Cherry Patch Ranch (think Bunny Ranch)
as Manny, the gay purveyor of the ranch, Michele, a young Italian hiker and
Darla, one of the sexy, young women at the ranch are thrown together. Manny dreams of Michele, Michele and Darla of
each other, but these daydreams of America, the West, romance and love come to
an abrupt halt in a violent episode.
A new baby causes the changing dynamic in Marin’s and
Carter’s young marriage as Marin longs for the reckless/romantic days of her
youth in “Wish You Were Here.” She
struggles with the reality of having given up that life when she decided to
settle down with the lawyerly, responsible Carter.
Every July 5, Harris, a former miner and now hobbyist/prospector
searches for abandoned fireworks in the Nevada desert in “Man-O-War.” This time, he finds a teenage girl.
If these stories aren’t enough to whet your appetite and you
only read one story, “The Archivist” should be the one. Carly and Nate, sisters, try to make sense of
adulthood after their alcoholic mother died in a tragic car accident when they
were very young. They are both wrapped
up in the complexity of loving their mother because she was their mother, but
also struggling to become their own women with their own relationships. They are finding that they cling to each other,
bound by their own DNA, yet knowing they share their mother’s and the fear that
her life’s outcome will be their own. Two
master short story authors came to mind when reading this story, Jhumpa Lahiri
and Lorrie Moore. I cannot remember
reading a more powerful short story in a number of years. It demonstrates Watkins ability not only as
a writer, but as an artist.
In the longest piece, “The Diggings” Errol and his brother
leave Ohio for California during the Gold Rush.
It contrasts the monotony of trying to find gold with the anticipation
and excitement which borders on madness.
“Virginia City” captures three friends, Iris, Jules, and
Danny as they venture to Virginia City, Nevada, to see where Danny’s parents
eloped in a cavernous, makeshift chapel.
The Old West comes back to life as they gamble and become nostalgic for
their friendship that is already undergoing changes with the simple passage of
time.
The collection concludes as Catie and Gwen cling to each
other in “Graceland”. At stake is not
only their smaller world, but the greater ecosystem as they see it slowly deteriorating
around them, much like the own memories of their deceased mother.
Watkins’ emphasis on the environment reminds me of the
stories of Ron Carlson and Pam Houston.
According to the Bucknell University website where Watkins teaches, she
is currently working on a novel. After
reading her collection, I’m sure that like me, you can’t wait to read more from
this new voice in contemporary fiction.
--Edward
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