Like the work of Cormac McCarthy, Denis Johnson, Richard Ford, and Annie Proulx, Battleborn represents a near-perfect confluence of sensibility and setting, and the introduction of an exceptionally powerful and original literary voice. In each of these ten unforgettable stories, Claire Vaye Watkins writes her way fearlessly into the mythology of the American West, utterly reimagining it. Her characters orbit around the region's vast spaces, winning redemption despite - and often because of - the hardship and violence they endure. The arrival of a foreigner transforms the exchange of eroticism and emotion at a prostitution ranch. A prospecting hermit discovers the limits of his rugged individualism when he tries to rescue an abused teenager. Decades after she led her best friend into a degrading encounter in a Vegas hotel room, a woman feels the aftershock. Most bravely of all, Watkins takes on - and reinvents - her own troubled legacy in a story that emerges from the mayhem and destruction of Helter Skelter. Arcing from the sweeping and sublime to the minute and personal, from Gold Rush to ghost town to desert to brothel, the collection echoes not only in its title but also in its fierce, undefeated spirit the motto of her home state.
"Writers of the American West are a unique breed. Their prose, plots and characters are shaped by the history and landscape of a beautiful but unforgiving terrain. The land gets into their blood and comes out through their pens, creating prose as spare and beautiful as a empty landscape. Just as Wyoming has Annie Proulx, Montana has Ivan Doig, now Nevada has Claire Vaye Watkins, and her remarkable debut book of short stories, Battleborn.
Her stories focus on loners and lonely people, living far from society, or in but not part of society. In one story, an Italian tourist kills time in a Nevada brothel as Search and Rescue look for his friend, vanished near Death Valley. In another, a man writes letters to a stranger, whose possessions he found in a wrecked car. Two teenage girls living in a small town head for Vegas in hopes of grown-up excitement. Most striking though, is her semi-autobiographical story based on her father and her upbringing. Her father was a member of the Charles Manson family, and though he died when Watkins was a child, his ghost still lingers. All these stories are written in clear and spare prose, only revealing what is necessary, but still digging deep into her characters' pain and hopes. Remember Watkins' name come book award season, and don't be surprised when she wins."
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