Road to Nowhere and Other New Stories from the Southwest

by D. Seth Horton (Editor), Brett Garcia Myhren (Editor)

Overview

The Southwest of the twenty-first century is full of surprises, and so is this collection of southwestern short stories published between 2007 and 2011. The writers represented here remind us that this is not the Old Southwest of gunfighters and sagebrush but, instead, a place of rock collectors, palm readers, and Russian mail-order brides. Well-known authors like Sallie Bingham, Ron Carlson, Laura Furman, and Dagoberto Gilb are joined here by exciting newcomers Eddie Chuculate, Don Waters, Claire Vaye Watkins, and others.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826353146
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	08/01/2013
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

D. Seth Horton is the editor or coeditor of five previous collections of western short stories, most recently Road to Nowhere and Other New Stories from the Southwest (UNM Press).

Brett Garcia Myhren, coeditor of Road to Nowhere and Other New Stories from the Southwest (UNM Press), teaches at Saddleback College.

Table of Contents

Introduction D. Seth Horton Brett Garcia Myhren 1

Advanced Latin From the collection Red Car Sallie Bingham 5

On the San Juan From Prism Ron Carlson 15

Dear Shorty From the Kenyan Review Eddie Chuculate 19

The Hooferman From the Bellingham Review Natalie Diaz 53

Lubbock Is Not a Place of the Spirit From Epoch Murray Farish 55

Here It Was, November From the collection The Mother Who Stayed Laura Furman 76

To Document From the collection Before the End, After the Beginning Dagoberto Gilb 95

23 Months From Epoch Caitlin Horrocks 108

Trust From Narrative Paula McLain 119

Arboretum From Ecotone David Philip Mullins 128

Alba From the Atlantic Kent Nelson 141

Fantasy Is That From Natural Bridge Michael Onofrey 159

Portrait From the Northwest Review Kirstin Valdez Quade 175

Baby Mine From Glimmer Train Ron Savage 182

Drought From the Southwest Review Roz Spafford 190

The Last Day of the Boom From Alligator Juniper Justin St. Germain 195

Road to Nowhere From the Iowa Review James Terry 206

What to Do with the Dead From the Southwest Review Don Waters 232

Man-O-War From One Story Claire Vaye Watkins 246

Visitation From the New Yorker Brad Watson 266

Publications Reviewed 28l

Notes on Contributors 283

Credits 287

Editorial Reviews

Put aside what you thought you knew for sure about Southwest stories and get ready for an all-new and updated view of the way we live now. . . . The landscape is eternal—hot, breathless, by turns serene and menacing—but it is a living backdrop that speaks to a twenty-first-century Southwest literary tradition and provides us with a fresh way of understanding ourselves and our shared experience.
—Southwest Books of the Year

A literary cornucopia of superbly crafted short stories, Road to Nowhere and Other Stories from the Southwest is a fascinating and entertaining anthology that will leave readers eagerly tracking down more from the represented writers.
—Midwest Book Review

A literary cornucopia of superbly crafted short stories, Road to Nowhere and Other Stories from the Southwest is a fascinating and entertaining anthology that will leave readers eagerly tracking down more from the represented writers.
—Midwest Book Review

In this book the Southwest emerges as a region dominated by short, intercut 'sights' rather than John Ford or Park Service panoramas. The views of the Southwest presented here are fleeting glances—a San Diego neighborhood glimpsed from a freeway on-ramp, a baby's cry heard in the desert night, freshly graded roads to subdivisions that don't yet exist. These stories force the Southwest to face itself in a future neither tourists nor locals could have foretold.
—Phillip Round, author of The Impossible Land: Story and Place in California's Imperial Valley

The wise, tough depictions of these unforgettable roads to ruin will cause you surprise—and gratitude. The characters here are true creatures of the desert making their way through the Middle of Nowhere to Nowhere, through the dry river beds, the dry lake beds and wastelands, and to the irredeemable places of ghosts and gun culture. Always desiring to leave, they resolve to stay, to be damaged and to cause damage. They find no shelter from the truth of their choices, past and present. Reading this fine anthology is like traveling under the searing, purifying Southwest sky. 'Why have I come?' you will ask, and 'Why would I ever leave?'
—Kevin McIlvoy, author of The Complete History of New Mexico: Stories

From the Publisher