Great American Desert: Stories

Water, its use and abuse, trickles through Great American Desert, a story collection by Terese Svoboda that spans the misadventures of the prehistoric Clovis people to the wanderings of a forlorn couple around a pink pyramid in a sci-fi prairie. In "Dutch Joe," the eponymous hero sees the future from the bottom of a well in the Sandhills, while a woman tries to drag her sister back from insanity in "Dirty Thirties." In "Bomb Jockey," a local Romeo disposes of leaky bombs at South Dakota's army depot, while a family quarrels in "Ogallala Aquifer" as a thousand trucks dump chemical waste from a munitions depot next to their land. Bugs and drugs are devoured in "Alfalfa," a disc jockey talks her way out of a knifing in "Sally Rides," and an updated Pied Piper begs parents to reconsider in "The Mountain." The consequences of the land's mistreatment is epitomized in the final story by a discovery inside a pink pyramid.

In her arresting and inimitable style, Svoboda's delicate handling of the complex dynamics of family and self seeps into every sentence of these first-rate short stories about what we do to the world around us-and what it can do to us.


Author: Terese Svoboda
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
Published: 03/12/2019
Pages: 200
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.50w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780814255209

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 01/15/2019 pg. 33
Booklist 02/15/2019 pg. 23
Publishers Weekly 03/18/2019

About the Author
Recipient of a Guggenheim, Terese Svoboda is the author of seventeen books of prose, poetry, memoir, translation, and biography, including six books of fiction--most recently, Bohemian Girl.

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