From the Place in the Valley Deep in the Forest - Softcover

Cullin, Mitch

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802313361 ISBN 13: 9780802313362

Publisher: Dufour Editions, 2001

Synopsis

The stories and characters in this diverse collection of stories from the acclaimed novelist Mitch Cullin provide a fascinating gloss on events that have taken place in the second half of the 20th century. They begin at a remote Japanese beach house and end on an unnamed Alaskan island. These are stories about isolation, remembrances of past experiences, and the sometimes inaccurate nature of memory. Cullin's stories examine individuals who have survived momentous, often horrific, social upheavals-where relationships and common day-to-day life are suddenly shaken by unforeseen circumstances. `From the Place in the Valley Deep in the Forest' is a collection that deftly suggests we are all emigrants from personal histories we recall only fleetingly-moments which draw us back, but, as we imagine them, seem increasingly difficult to grasp. These polished and graceful stories are further evidence of the kind of work that makes Cullin one of our best young writers.

About this title

About the Author

Mitch Cullin is the author of the acclaimed novels Whompyjawed, Tideland, and Branches. He has received a Dodge Jones Foundation grant, writing sponsorship from Recursos De Santa Fe, the Stony Brook Short Fiction Prize, and a nomination for inclusion in the ALA’s "Notable Book List, 1999." His fiction has appeared in The Santa Fe Literary Review, Christopher Street, The Bayou Review, Austin Flux, Harrington’s Gay Men’s Fiction Quarterly, and other publications. He currently resides in Tucson, Arizona.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* After four novels, including the intriguing novel-in-verse Branches (2000) and the bittersweet Cosmology of Bing [BKL F 15 01], Cullin rounds up eight short stories. They demonstrate that he is more than a canny new regionalist. Only three share the West Texas setting of his novels, and they hardly overshadow the others, set in Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Ukraine, and Alaska, respectively. Three of those tackle big public themes--American reconciliation with Vietnam, the killing fields of the Pol Pot regime, and the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster--and another deals with the lesser-known but news-generating matter of Alaskan Indian tribes punishing their own public offenders rather than letting them be imprisoned. Cullin completely avoids making essays of his stories by focusing on vividly realized characters caught in the middle of those circumstances: a boy, now 16, who lived near Chernobyl when small; another teen, arrested for a brutal assault and robbery in Anchorage; a Cambodian girl in an agricultural labor camp with her aunt and uncle; and married 'Nam vets bicycling through old combat zones with their 19-year-old son. If something of the experimentalist shows in Cullin's novels, his stories are old-fashioned in the best sense, reporting slices of life as the characters experience them in language that is economical yet richly evocative because of its precision. Ray Olson
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About this edition

• Publisher: Dufour Editions
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0802313361
• ISBN 13: 9780802313362
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 244