Synopses & Reviews
Ben Jones, the protagonist of James Anderson's haunting debut novel, The Never-Open Desert Diner (Caravel Books, 2015), is on the verge of losing his small trucking company. A single, thirty-eight-year-old truck driver, Ben's route takes him back and forth across one of the most desolate and beautiful regions of the Utah desert. The orphan son of a Native American father and a Jewish social worker, Ben is drawn into a love affair with a mysterious woman, Claire, who plays a cello in the model home of an abandoned housing development in the desert. Her appearance, seemingly out of nowhere, reignites a decades-old tragedy at a roadside café referred to by the locals as The Never-Open Desert Diner. The owner of the diner, Walt Butterfield, is an embittered and solitary old man who refuses to yield to change after his wife's death.
Review
"[A] wondrously strange first novel...there are a lot of sad stories on Ben's route...and Anderson tells them in a voice that's...high, dry and severely beautiful...Anderson is one fine storyteller." The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Anderson...writes with a lyrical style and allows the plot to unfold in a manner as seductive as the desert itself. Readers who revel in fiction set in the Southwest will want to join his protagonist for the ride." Library Journal
Review
"Anderson distills the heat and shimmering haze of the Utah desert into his fine first novel." Publishers Weekly
About the Author
James Anderson was born in Seattle and raised in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. He is a graduate of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and received his Master's Degree in Creative Writing from Pine Manor College in Boston. For many years he worked in book publishing. Other jobs have included logging, commercial fishing and, briefly, truck driver. He currently divides his time between Ashland, Oregon, and the Four Corners region of the American Southwest.