November 30, 2009
Actor and playwright Shepard strikes a world-weary note in his latest (after Great Dream of Heaven
). Though billed as a short story collection, there are poems and narratives built solely on snippets of dialogue sprinkled throughout. It's all loosely connected by setting: most take place in forgotten western towns or along lonely stretches of highway. There is also a unifying tone of swagger that is satisfyingly reminiscent of Shepard's film characters and crackles with the dramatic tension one would expect from the celebrated playwright. Many of these pieces clock in at a page or less, and come across less as stories than as moments soliloquized by growly, first-person narrators. The brevity and intensity result in macabre overload, which, while initially disturbing, settles into the mundane as the bleakness becomes commonplace. It's best read in small doses, as, say, a disillusioned alternative to daily devotions.
Starred review from December 1, 2009
A table of contents listing 133 (count'em) entries may tempt readers to dismiss this new collection from Shepard (Great Dream of Heaven, 2002, etc.) as a literary grab bag; they will be richly surprised by its thematic depth and coherence.
A quick browse suggests a mix of travelogue, dialogue (unattributed to any speakers), free verse, tall tales, stage directions, journal jottings, dreams and writing that resists categorization. Yet rather than a busman's holiday for the Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright (Buried Child, etc.) and Oscar-nominated actor (The Right Stuff, etc.), this volume offers a profound meditation on mortality, identity, eternity, blood ties, the passage of time, the essence of America, the mythos of the West and the possibilities of art. It demands to be read in order and in its entirety: Juxtapositions offer thematic links, and narratives that initially appear self-contained resume multiple times over the course of the collection. One of those narratives concerns a severed head that retains consciousness and speech and somehow convinces a passing man to carry him (it?) elsewhere. Another features three buddies whose lives have devolved into traveling from place to place for no apparent purpose."We're all in terrible shape," says the narrator."I don't know how we got this way." First-person narration dominates, some of it apparently representing the voice of the author, some of it obviously not. In one of Shepard's more arresting images,"You circle all around your life, but do you find it? You circle from above. Like a hawk." Older rarely means wiser in these pages filled with vagabonds who aren't sure what they're looking for, where they're looking for it or why. They circle back to homes that no longer exist, at least not the way they did in memory. They are"lost souls wandering in the desert," but they can never quite lose themselves.
Echoes and resonances across the selections intensify the cumulative impact.
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January 15, 2010
The pieces in this collection are called stories, but many are more like fragments. There are poems, dialogs, and miscellaneous items of varying length, from a few lines to several pages, each separately titled. As the reader is drawn in, motifs recur, and themes begin to emerge. Some pieces revolve around a trio of men in varying stages of intoxication traveling aimlessly from place to place, trying to get in touch with someone. Journeys are a major concern, as many of the stories feature solitary travelers or groups going on vacation, waiting in airports, trying to check into motel rooms, or driving through blizzards accompanied by familiar tunes on the radio. There is also the recurring story of a hit man and his occasional musings on the meaning of life and his profession. Stranger still and possibly related, a bodyless head hails a man from the side of the road and starts a conversation. VERDICT This varied and fragmentary collection does add up to a worthwhile literary endeavor. Shepard's gritty and humorous prose style is perfectly suited to the material. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 9/1/09.]Jim Coan, SUNY Coll. at Oneonta
Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from December 1, 2009
Highways, rundown motels, Muzak-plagued franchises, bars, and beaches, snowstorms and blistering heat, these are the settings and circumstances in Shepards hypnotic new book of entwined short stories. As in Cruising Paradise (1996) and Great Dream of Heaven (2004), strands of autobiography infuse Shepards magnetic and beautifully tooled stories with their potent intimacy, wry humor, and tightrope tension. Shepards central narrator is a restless man with a thousand-mile stare who prowls Americas interstates and back roads with no particular purpose except to catch the buzz of forward motion through scrolling landscapes. As much as he roams, he cant escape his past, even as age plays havoc with his memories, and the ordinary collides with the inexplicable. A man comes across a severed head that speaks to him. A mercenary is annoyed over the terms of his latest assassination. Exploded meth labs, an abandoned church, traces of the Indian genocide, the horrors of Katrina, paeans to musiciansShepards acerbic and haunting stories and lyric yet piercing musings give voice to the longings and paradoxes of our days and nights as we try to follow the directive Shepards harried traveler gives himself: Just stay between the lines.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)