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Original Essays | September 9, 2013
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More copies of this ISBNThis title in other editionsBattleborn 1st Editionby Claire Vaye Watkins
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Like the work of Cormac McCarthy, Denis Johnson, Richard Ford, and Annie Proulx, Battleborn represents a near-perfect confluence of sensibility and setting, and the introduction of an exceptionally powerful and original literary voice. In each of these ten unforgettable stories, Claire Vaye Watkins writes her way fearlessly into the mythology of the American West, utterly reimagining it. Her characters orbit around the region's vast spaces, winning redemption despite — and often because of — the hardship and violence they endure. The arrival of a foreigner transforms the exchange of eroticism and emotion at a prostitution ranch. A prospecting hermit discovers the limits of his rugged individualism when he tries to rescue an abused teenager. Decades after she led her best friend into a degrading encounter in a Vegas hotel room, a woman feels the aftershock. Most bravely of all, Watkins takes on — and reinvents — her own troubled legacy in a story that emerges from the mayhem and destruction of Helter Skelter. Arcing from the sweeping and sublime to the minute and personal, from Gold Rush to ghost town to desert to brothel, the collection echoes not only in its title but also in its fierce, undefeated spirit the motto of her home state.
Review:"The people in Battleborn are wounded yet compassionate, despairing and lonely, but always open to a hug, a kiss, a way out, a way in, or a fleeting moment of companionship. These aren't characters in stories, but human beings perpetually yearning for warmth. Fortunately, this book contains many stories because I read them for days. Claire Vaye Watkins has apparently sprung fully formed into the narrow pantheon of young writers willing to take narrative risks, eschewing trend and style for depth and wisdom. Entering the varied lives is akin to watching a tightrope walker high overhead, moving with steady confidence without a net. I found no missteps, no wobbles, no hesitations. As every story ended, I exhaled a long breath I didn't know I'd been holding. Watkins writes with precision and care, the sentences themselves as surprising as the events, the dialogue, and the spare description. On a purely formal level, these stories shatter the forward motion of time. They move easily and readily from the present to the past and even to the near future. For lack of a better term, there is a purity to the prose that is a constant pleasure to read. Watkins makes beautiful art by embracing the rigors of the short story form, considered the most difficult in literature, then tossing out the rules and inventing some of her own. She blends history and fact with fiction to create a new mythology of the American West — the untold stories of people seeking connection with the past, the land, and each other. There is great originality in these narratives. I was deeply moved by the core of emotion within each story. The settings are fresh — desert, brothel, ghost town, casino, a series of letters. But the generosity and personal sacrifices of the people are as universal as the stars at night. Chris Offutt is the author, most recently, of No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home. He lives in Mississippi." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review:"A real treat....Through remarkably assured writing that manages to be both bristly and brittle, Watkins chronicles despair and loneliness, catalogs valiant fights for survival and desperate please to be heard, and every time has us rooting for her underdogs." San Francisco Chronicle
Review:"Although individual stories stand alone, together they tell the tale of a place, and of the population that thrives and perishes therein....The historical sits comfortably alongside the contemporary and the factual nicely supplements the fictional....Readers will share in the environs of the author and her characters, be taken into the hardship of a pitiless place and emerge on the other side—wiser, warier and weathered like the landscape." The New York Times Book Review
Review:"The most captivating voice to come out of the West since Annie Proulx — though it's to early Joan Didion that [Watkins] bears comparison for her arid humor and cut-to-the-chase knowingness." Vogue
Review:"Readers...will find much to admire in this arresting collection, which one hopes is merely the first stop along the way for a writer who deserves a sustained literary life." Library Journal (starred review)
Review:"Exceptional....A writer of great precision and greater restraint, Watkins is a natural storyteller whose material enriches that gift rather than engulfing it....One doesn't have to be from the Battleborn state to recognize and appreciate literature that resonates like this." The Rumpus
Review:"[A] breathtaking debut....[Watkins'] stories...carry the weight and devastation of entire novels." Flavorpill
Review:"Absorbing....[Battleborn's] true setting is a Faulknerian desert of the heart, where the soil is cursed by its precious metals and one's personal history can be just as toxic. Clear-eyed and nimble in parsing the lives of her Westerners, one of Watkins's strengths is not dodging that the simple fact that love can be tragic, involving, as it does, humans so flawed, so often tender and yet incapable." The Boston Globe
Review:"A powerful new voice that deserves recognition....[Watkins maps] a regional portrait while pausing for detailed sketches, with a strong perspective that blends the romanticized past of Larry McMurtry, heartbreaking characters of Annie Proulx, and bleak timeless landscapes of Cormac McCarthy." The Onion AV Club
Review:"As if Watkins' prose embodies the desert landscape of Nevada itself, the stories are stony, unkind, and harsh, though never unattractive....Beneath these confessions runs a spiritual undertow — that salvific beauty can arise when brutality is brought to light....All of her stories left me feeling purged and oddly cleansed, easily making Battleborn one of the strongest collections I've read in years." The Millions
Review:"In her debut short story collection Battleborn Claire Vaye Watkins marries character to landscape as well as anyone I have read in years. These stories set in the Nevada desert are gritty and brilliant, and foretell an auspicious literary future for their author." Largehearted Boy
Review:"A coolly impressive new voice of the American West." The Financial Times
Review:"A fresh, fierce, fabulous collection. Watkins writes like the divine Didion — cool and clean with not a word wasted. Where'd she come from? I'm glad shes here." Joy Williams, author of The Quick and The Dead
Review:"Claire Vaye Watkins is never, ever satisfied with the ordinary. Each story in this brilliant debut surprises. Watkins offers us amazing visions of a funny, savage, haunted West — and one of the most outstanding short story collections in recent memory." Christopher Coake, author of We're in Trouble and You Came Back
About the AuthorClaire Vaye Watkins was born in Death Valley and raised in the Nevada desert. She has been named one of the National Book Foundation's "Five Under 35" fiction writers of 2012. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Paris Review, The Hopkins Review, Hobart, One Story, Ploughshares, and Las Vegas Weekly. She is an assistant professor at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!Average customer rating based on 4 comments:
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