This collection of short stories is gathered around the theme of rural experience. That may, in fact, be the only traceable similarity between them. Pulled from a cohort of writers with diverse backgrounds and experiences, the scenes accounted for in this collection include dark and dusty roadsides, orchard oases, rundown motels, empty fields and neglected reservations. There is hardly a trace of the verdant or pastoral that one expects from stories centered in rural settings. Each is an illustration of rural experience that emphasizes either the desperation of isolation and poverty or the space for imagination and divine that can only be found in the margins of society. None of these stories cede ground to the numerous stereotypes or overplayed characterizations of rural life. Instead, they toy with these expectations, tossing the reader from sadness to fear, shock, seduction, some levity and then back again.
The book includes 19 short stories, subverting expectations from the start with “Brand New Plagues” by Ron Austin, a supernatural tale set in St. Louis, delicately honoring the balance of Ozark and urban culture in a way that perhaps only another St. Louis native could fully appreciate. Austin sets the opening story in a pawn shop where a touch of magic brings the shelved products to life. However, this unexpected premise gradually moves to the background of the story, shelved behind mundane social discomforts and introspections of the protagonist. It is both thoughtful and strange. The colorful and grotesque imagery and animism are immediately disarming and forecast the surprise brought by each subsequent tale.
Then we move through stories of survival and resilience in spaces where science and modern society have not yet fully eradicated the mystery and enchantment of folkways and mythology. Each of these stories highlights quiet, hidden, overlooked and almost empty places where anything can happen. One beautiful example of this is in “Dog” by Erin Brown, in an orchard oasis scene beside some remote highway. While it has a strong Grapes-of-Wrath flavor, the absence of any real geographic contextualization makes it feel surreal and all the more remote.
Several of the pieces included in this collection bring attention to the injustices and vulnerabilities that persist in overlooked spaces, where people and resources may be exploited with impunity. Jessica Doe’s story “The Kid with the Longest Braid,” about Native American school children, is an empathetic examination of community trauma and the defiance of despair that can be found in the marginalized communities in America’s rural peripheries. “The Axe” by Mark Ennis similarly confronts the injustice of colonialism and the defiant resistance of Native American families on the border between Maine and Canada. While the pace and shifting mood from story to story prevent deep dwelling on these themes, the book does not lack depth in these subjects. Rather, the distribution of realism and surrealism throughout gives them space without overbearing weight.
Some of the stories use these spaces as frontiers of expanded possibility for horror and the supernatural, the way many other writers have deployed deep space for science fiction. There are stories of the undead and the undying. “Whiskey to the Wound” by Rachel Nussbaum tells the story of party kids who violently discover that they cannot die, bringing an energetic climax to the end of the collection. It is fun and kinky, and provides a bit of catharsis that lightens the weight of the whole book.
All of the stories collected here are sincere expressions of rarely articulated but deeply resonant experiences, inspired by family stories and personal memory. The work evokes imagery and emotion that can only be conjured by those who have known these environments and their people, personally and intimately — the weight of the air in an orange grove, the sound of an oak forest after the leaves have fallen or the cognitive dissonance of hating a place as much as you love it.