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STILL WILD

SHORT FICTION OF THE AMERICAN WEST, 1950 TO THE PRESENT

A useful survey, and a nicely varied compendium of vigorous tales.

“The severities of pioneer life yield up no Prousts,” novelist McMurtry observes in his terse introduction to this varied gathering of short fiction by contemporary writers who “at one point or another in their careers have taken as their subject life in the American West.” His point about pioneer life is that until recently most of those who wrote about the West were outsiders, not the native-born, and they wrote about a West filtered through their romantic or ideological notions of what it was. Not until the 1950s did significant numbers of writers, either born in the West or longtime residents, begin to deal with its complex history and somewhat grim present. Wallace Stegner, a founding father of the modern western tradition, is necessarily present (“Buglesong”). Some of the other choices are also necessary if unsurprising: Tom McGuane (“Dogs”); Richard Ford (“Rock Springs”); and William H. Gass (a classic tale, “The Pedersen Kid”). William Hauptman (the wonderful “Good Rockin’ Tonight”), Rick Bass (“Mahatma Joe,” one of his most precise and effective stories), Annie Proulx (“Brokeback Mountain”), and Raymond Carver (“The Third Thing That Killed My Father”) are among the other well-known figures here. Dagoberto Gilb, Louise Erdrich, and Leslie Marmon Silko stand in as representatives of the upsurge in western fiction being produced by Hispanic and Native American writers. And several less well-known authors (Dave Hickey, Mark Jude Poirier, and Jon Bllman) indicate the still-vibrant nature of the tradition.

A useful survey, and a nicely varied compendium of vigorous tales.

Pub Date: July 10, 2000

ISBN: 0-684-86882-2

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000

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MAGIC HOUR

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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