THE BALLAD OF JINX JENKINS

Sommers’ debut collection of linked short stories portrays a series of uncanny events that occurs in a fictional valley.

Green Valley “exists in the soul of every town and every village, every suburb and every city,” remarks Sommers in his opening note to the reader. This is the first installment in the Conduits series, which includes 12 stories set within a fictional landscape that stretches from mountain wilderness to a great metropolis. The opener, “A Sunny Day,” follows Gregg Ryan, a lonely SkyTram operator, who is beguiled by a passerby he spots on a crosswalk. In “Ya’hootie,” Boy Scout Pierre Abbé sets out to prove that Ya’hootie (a Bigfoot-like entity) does not exist but makes a life-changing discovery. Meanwhile, “The Ballpark Poet” is about Mac, a stadium beer vendor known for spouting rhymes during the game. Other stories star a crazed delivery driver, a movie projectionist threatened by the march of technology, and a woman whose child refuses to be born. Jinx Jenkins, a vagrant who carries bad luck with him, makes brief appearances throughout the collection. Sommers’ debut offers thoughtful insight into the processes of mythologization. With regard to Mac, the Ballpark Poet, he writes: “Nobody had a clue who he was or where he came from. When fans asked him, he always agreed with their story, in turn cultivating his myth beyond any actual truth. He figured the grander the legend became, the more beer he could sell.” The collection employs some imaginative twists in perspective—the foulmouthed delivery driver Puck introduced as a character in “Maddest Midsummer’s Night” reappears as the first-person narrator of “Roulette.” Puck’s crude, misogynistic language may deter some readers: “Can you believe this bitch? Fucking cunt. I swear, every time I get stiffed, it’s by some entitled white rich bitch.” Still, Sommers succeeds in setting up a fascinatingly detestable character. This is a shrewdly written collection that turns a mirror on contemporary society’s hunger to forge and destroy legends.

An inventive, intuitive debut.