PRIMARY COLORS

by Barbara Croft ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1990

A debut volume of 14 stories that contains a handful of superb midwestern fables, another group of moving fictional reminiscences, and several wannabes. Croft has a soft, delicate touch, and this collection should mark her as a writer to watch. Of the fables, ""The Mosasaur"" concerns the changes wrought in the life of Carlisle J. Campbell when he digs up the bones of a ""reposing serpent"" on his farm. He becomes obsessed with the bones, moves to Iowa, and glues them to a barn to remind passing motorists ""how easily monsters can enter into our lives."" ""Blue Horses"" works like a childhood fairy tale for adults: a careful parable about art objects ends with resonating questions--""Why should there be blue horses? Why should there be a man to ask about it?"" Among the reminiscences, ""The Ragpicker's Boy"" allows a young narrator, whose family is mired in poverty, to admire the ragpicker's family and their horses from a distance--only to discover close up how sordid and hardscrabble they really are. In ""A Little Piece of Star,"" pieces of a meteor puncture the roof of a grandfather's 1934 Packard, changing his life forever. ""Turning Blue"" has to do with a narrator's grandmother who is losing her powers; ""Beautiful Belle"" with a two-faced calf that survives, causing a pitched battle between the narrator's parents over household authority and theology; and ""Someday House"" is a haunting tale about a father (an independent contractor) whose attempts to build a dream-house for his family nearly cause the family to disintegrate. A sure-handed group of stories, mainly, often filled with a sense of wonder and with luminous rumors from a world long lost.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1990

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: New Rivers--dist. by Talman

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1990

Categories: FICTION