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4.11 AVERAGE
4.11 AVERAGE
This a review I wrote for my bookstore, BookPeople in Austin, TX:
Picking up a copy and looking at the back of Battleborn, it's hard not to be interested. How does a debut by a young writer have promotional quotes from Joy Williams, Donald Ray Pollock, and Pulitzer Prize winning author Paul Harding? Impressive to say the least. That mixed with a cover picturing a desert that would be picturesque if it didn't threaten to consume you whole and burn you alive. And such a gritty title, Battleborn. All parts added up, you wouldn't expect the whole to come from a young, tenderfoot woman writer. But then again, these stories may not have been able to breath without such fearless grace of Claire Vaye Watkins.
All the stories take place in Watkins' native Nevada desert, a place known in history as having a tendency of killing those who explore or even cross its expanse. And from the opening of Battleborn's first story basically lists examples of such damned souls and gives the impression that the characters in her stories are just as doomed. With so many souls have been swallowed in its centuries of settlement, Watkins' desert is more than a dormant backdrop. It becomes a calm and dangerous entity acting as judge and jury to all who seek within it.
All who come to the Nevada desert in Battleborn are driven by a purpose. Gold in the mountains in the 1840's, salvation for Manson family worshipers, velvet Elvises and kitschy casinos, mustang ranch hookers and jackpots. And there are the townie teenagers who can't seem to put any distance between them and that blistering hole. You can't help but wonder how much Claire Vaye Watkins was one of those kids. At one point, Watkins points out those well meaning folks who laugh on flights to Las Vegas at the jokes the attendants make about all they'll lose. They have no idea.
If you're looking for a heart-warmer, friend you're mistaken. But if you're looking for pulp western thrills, you also won't find them. Battleborn has fangs that can bite deep in a way that a talented and patient writer can orchestrate. It's a slow and deliberate burn of sensually gritty prose. If Claire Vaye Watkins can do this with a handful of stories, I can't wait to read a full-length novel. Keep this author on your radar.
Picking up a copy and looking at the back of Battleborn, it's hard not to be interested. How does a debut by a young writer have promotional quotes from Joy Williams, Donald Ray Pollock, and Pulitzer Prize winning author Paul Harding? Impressive to say the least. That mixed with a cover picturing a desert that would be picturesque if it didn't threaten to consume you whole and burn you alive. And such a gritty title, Battleborn. All parts added up, you wouldn't expect the whole to come from a young, tenderfoot woman writer. But then again, these stories may not have been able to breath without such fearless grace of Claire Vaye Watkins.
All the stories take place in Watkins' native Nevada desert, a place known in history as having a tendency of killing those who explore or even cross its expanse. And from the opening of Battleborn's first story basically lists examples of such damned souls and gives the impression that the characters in her stories are just as doomed. With so many souls have been swallowed in its centuries of settlement, Watkins' desert is more than a dormant backdrop. It becomes a calm and dangerous entity acting as judge and jury to all who seek within it.
All who come to the Nevada desert in Battleborn are driven by a purpose. Gold in the mountains in the 1840's, salvation for Manson family worshipers, velvet Elvises and kitschy casinos, mustang ranch hookers and jackpots. And there are the townie teenagers who can't seem to put any distance between them and that blistering hole. You can't help but wonder how much Claire Vaye Watkins was one of those kids. At one point, Watkins points out those well meaning folks who laugh on flights to Las Vegas at the jokes the attendants make about all they'll lose. They have no idea.
If you're looking for a heart-warmer, friend you're mistaken. But if you're looking for pulp western thrills, you also won't find them. Battleborn has fangs that can bite deep in a way that a talented and patient writer can orchestrate. It's a slow and deliberate burn of sensually gritty prose. If Claire Vaye Watkins can do this with a handful of stories, I can't wait to read a full-length novel. Keep this author on your radar.
I loved these stories. They're little works of art and totally made me think and lose myself while reading. The places where they take place are developed as characters here, and I found these characters fascinating. I thought the best story of all of these was "Diggings," which takes place during the gold rush of the 19th century. Just lovely work--a lot of pain and loss and emptiness, put into words and developed in a way that made me gasp and smile. Hooray for Claire Vaye Watkins!
I thought this was a pretty remarkable collection of mostly-realstic regional fiction, in this case dealing with life in the parts of Nevada that aren't necessarily Vegas. People here go to Vegas, but they mostly don't live there.
There's a lot of sadness in these stories-- if you wanted to convince people that all contemporary literary fiction isn't sad, you wouldn't lean on this book, which is peopled with lovelorn twenty-somethings, mostly. But Watkins knows her way around a story, so one like "Virginia City" uses the location, an abandoned-then-rebuilt former silver town, in a couple different metaphorical contexts to position her story in the past and the present, and it works. Other stories are similarly as sophisticated in the way they deploy those "metaphors we live by." There's just a lot of good work here, in a very traditionalist vein, so much so that the opening story, about the narrator-author's connection to the Manson family almost feels out of place, or at least superfluous in a collection that would be really good without it.
There's a lot of sadness in these stories-- if you wanted to convince people that all contemporary literary fiction isn't sad, you wouldn't lean on this book, which is peopled with lovelorn twenty-somethings, mostly. But Watkins knows her way around a story, so one like "Virginia City" uses the location, an abandoned-then-rebuilt former silver town, in a couple different metaphorical contexts to position her story in the past and the present, and it works. Other stories are similarly as sophisticated in the way they deploy those "metaphors we live by." There's just a lot of good work here, in a very traditionalist vein, so much so that the opening story, about the narrator-author's connection to the Manson family almost feels out of place, or at least superfluous in a collection that would be really good without it.
A fitting book of short stories to accompany my trek across Nevada by train ... sometimes gritty, sometimes vast, mostly adventurous, and rightly set for all the characters that make up this state.
4.5 stars. Excellent short stories in the dry heat.
There's 10 short stories and I've ranked them starting #1 with my favorite, ending #10 with my last favorite. They are listed in reading order.
Ghosts, Cowboys, #1
The Last Thing We Need, #3
Rondine Al Nido, #9
The Past Perfect..., #4
Wish You Were Here, #8
Man-O-War, #6
The Archivist, #2
The Diggings, #5
Virginia City, #10
Graceland, #7
I'm not a short story kinda reader, but having been raised for a full decade(ish) in rural-ass Nevada (re:Winnemucca), this felt like a need-to-read. Generally speaking, I loved the focus on the absolute desolate nature that is Nevada living. Most of it isn't Las Vegas lights and Reno grind. Most of it is dust, mines, wind, and quiet. So quiet you know what nothing sounds like. The apparently-universal experience of visiting the Oregon coast. The way that mining is intrinsic to every life in one way or another. I really feel like a few of the stories captured these elements, but a few only focused on the trashy element that comes with rural and isolated living in the Silver State, where prostitution, gambling, and abandonment run rampant against the beautiful backdrop of sagebrush and mountains. Definitely worth a read, but know that some stories are worth skipping while others you might read again. TW violence, abuse, SA, drug use, alcohol use.
Ghosts, Cowboys, #1
The Last Thing We Need, #3
Rondine Al Nido, #9
The Past Perfect..., #4
Wish You Were Here, #8
Man-O-War, #6
The Archivist, #2
The Diggings, #5
Virginia City, #10
Graceland, #7
I'm not a short story kinda reader, but having been raised for a full decade(ish) in rural-ass Nevada (re:Winnemucca), this felt like a need-to-read. Generally speaking, I loved the focus on the absolute desolate nature that is Nevada living. Most of it isn't Las Vegas lights and Reno grind. Most of it is dust, mines, wind, and quiet. So quiet you know what nothing sounds like. The apparently-universal experience of visiting the Oregon coast. The way that mining is intrinsic to every life in one way or another. I really feel like a few of the stories captured these elements, but a few only focused on the trashy element that comes with rural and isolated living in the Silver State, where prostitution, gambling, and abandonment run rampant against the beautiful backdrop of sagebrush and mountains. Definitely worth a read, but know that some stories are worth skipping while others you might read again. TW violence, abuse, SA, drug use, alcohol use.
Using the American West as a backdrop for her beautiful prose, Claire Vaye Watkins creates stories that are both haunting and engaging. A memorable read.
Maybe I'll try again later. Watkins does a great job with vivid tangible descriptions and atmosphere, but there are only so many miserable hopeless depressing stories I can read in a row.
Loved this book, especially the first story, an unusual and beautiful exploration of the author's own parents and their involvement with Charles Manson. A very new western feel, similar to Pam Houston and Annie Proulx.