Great American Desert: Stories (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780814255209)

Water, its use and abuse, trickles through Great American Desert, a story collection by Terese Svoboda that spans the misadventures of the prehistoric Clovis people to the wanderings of a forlorn couple around a pink pyramid in a sci-fi prairie. In "Dutch Joe," the eponymous hero sees the future from the bottom of a well in the Sandhills, while a woman tries to drag her sister back from insanity in "Dirty Thirties." In "Bomb Jockey," a local Romeo disposes of leaky bombs at South Dakota's army depot, while a family quarrels in "Ogallala Aquifer" as a thousand trucks dump chemical waste from a munitions depot next to their land. Bugs and drugs are devoured in "Alfalfa," a disc jockey talks her way out of a knifing in "Sally Rides," and an updated Pied Piper begs parents to reconsider in "The Mountain." The consequences of the land's mistreatment is epitomized in the final story by a discovery inside a pink pyramid.

In her arresting and inimitable style, Svoboda's delicate handling of the complex dynamics of family and self seeps into every sentence of these first-rate short stories about what we do to the world around us--and what it can do to us.


Author: Terese Svoboda
ISBN-10: 0814255205
ISBN-13: 9780814255209
Publisher: Mad Creek Books
Language: English
Published: 03/12/2019
Pages: 200
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.50w x 0.60d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 01/15/2019 pg. 33
Booklist 02/15/2019 pg. 23
Publishers Weekly 03/18/2019