I am delighted to announce the arrival of this book to all of you! Frankly, sometimes I walk into the fiction room and think, “I want to read something by a woman.” Sometimes that can mean reading prose that’s about female protagonists who have to be brave in some subtle and graceful way, or just prose that has an abundance of characters in it that I can really relate to. But in this case, our writer is just truly modern, executing solid style that gracefully carries a variety of influences.
The best part is that these stories are welded so seamlessly that you won’t once stop reading to think about the writer herself or any of this technical business.
Not only is each story a delight, but the threads that unite these stories are more like great big ropes that you could use to rappel out of the second story of your parents’ house on a summer night in the Nevada desert. There really is something about Claire Vaye Watkins’ writing that makes me feel like I am on my own grand adventure. The best part is the book itself, and this isn’t my bookseller talking—this is me the person. Battleborn as a unified whole is gorgeous, un-kitschy, great prose. It is a book that I have to have, and it is standing up on my bedside table next to some collected stories volumes like that of Cheever.
Watkins’ writing reminds me of many a late-and-greats’ storytelling, yet she isn’t shy about using somewhat contemporary forms. Many stories come to us from a perspective that is complicated by the fearless way it rides the line between good and evil. And one is composed only of letters—written to someone who never, ever responds. And that is exactly what this entire book is: a letter to our world, about our country’s people, taking place in this vast and sunny desert landscape where (if you will) “everything is illuminated.”
Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins, Riverhead Books, $25.95
by Whitney
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