Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins
My rating: 4/5 cats
these stories are about encounters. people trying to make connections with other people. some are emotional, some protective, some sexual, some cross-cultural, some just a hand reaching out into the void. and most of them are very good.
the first couple of stories didn’t do anything for me, which was a shame, because i really wanted and expected to like the manson one. but it just felt a little writer’s workshoppy to me. but after the uneven first two, i pretty much loved every story that followed.
they still have some writerly quirks: future simple tense, having the protagonist referred to as “our girl,” but when what follows are perfect observations like these:
Our girl likes the way the four of them form a slowly closing semicircle around her and her friend. She likes, too, how they all look the same, in their baggy jeans and pastel collared shirts. They are dressed as most boys their age or slightly older dress, as though their tops and bottoms were mismatched pieces from two separate puzzles, one marked boy and the other man.
it’s hard for me to quibble.
and these stories are just drenched in loneliness, which is something i am always drawn to, when it is done in that quiet, resigned steadfast way, without bitterness:
His cigarettes helped mark the passage of time, especially on days that seemed all sun and sky, when he scolded poor Milo just to hear the sound of his own voice. The dependable dwindling of his cigarette supply reassured him that he hadn’t been left out here, that eventually he would have to ride into town and things would still be there, that the world hadn’t stopped whirling.
that is perfection on wheels.
i said before that the collection was about people trying to make connections, but that’s not entirely accurate. more than that, it is about people accepting connections as they come, and then just enduring the memory of those connections in their absence. which is not the same thing at all.
it’s better.
most of these stories take place in nevada, and have that kind of patina that the western novel has, in terms of characterization. all the things i mentioned, the quiet resignation, the vast sweeping landscapes swallowing up the individual spirit, but it never sinks into hopelessness, it is more like dogged perseverance. and that’s kind of my bread and butter.
so i will definitely read more from her, and would especially love to see what kind of novel she has in her, because although i have come a long way in my appreciation of the short story, i still prefer hunkering down with something that lasts.
