The Man Who Would Be God: Stories (Southwest Life and Letters) - Hardcover

Ruffin, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0870743546 ISBN 13: 9780870743542

Publisher: Southern Methodist Univ Pr, 1993

Synopsis

In this debut collection Paul Ruffin renders the details and textures of place in such a way that a world, whole and new, is evoked, vividly transporting readers to a setting they will recognize even if they've never been there before. Having planted readers' feet firmly in a tangible place, Ruffin urges readers to lift their feet and step again, and often that second step is a lulu. Readers may find themselves in a new dimension where the certainties of reality have been abandoned. These eleven stories probe the mythic possibilities of ordinary landscapes and daily events.
In "The Beast Within" a couple whose tire has a blowout on a little-traveled road spend a nightmarish night under the watchful eye of an armed and dangerous old woman and her dog; in "The Fox" a long-suppressed misery erupts in a startling denouement as a farmer's wife listens to her husband talk about a fox caught in a coon trap; in "Lamar Loper's First Case" a neophyte public attorney, delivering a restraining order to an abusive husband, uses more than his law school training to handle a volatile situation; and in the title story a wealthy West Texas rancher, wishing to extend the dimensions of his sovereignty, dons white robes and demands a peculiar kind of fealty from the Mexican peons he has invited to live on his land.
Ruffin's stories are accessible, direct, and deceptively simple. His men and women, endowed with richly textured sensibilities, compel the reader's attention, demand empathy, and endure.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Ruffin teaches English at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.

Reviews

This short-story collection by Ruffin (editor of the Texas Review ) paints poignant pictures of Southerners leading lives devoid of passion, engulfed by fear or haunted by apocalypse, who confront their demons and break new ground. A tired, broken farmer's wife nurtures indifference toward her merciless husband, but she finds a way to feel again that doesn't jeopardize the only life she has. A couple in a relationship where love has died are forcibly detained by an old woman with a stockpile of food and ammunition for the coming Armageddon, and in their cell the two connect for the first time since the early part of their marriage. A pair of aging flower children live on a drought-stricken farm; as they watch for storms that never come, the man sags into cynicism and the woman continues to believe in rain. A 50-year-old husband and his alcoholic wife return to his childhood home and find a crumbling house that holds out more hope than either has seen in years. In the title story, the unloved and eccentric inheritor of a family empire strikes a bargain with the inhabitants of an impoverished Mexican settlement, offering to provide for all their needs if they will make him their god.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A debut collection of 11 sharply etched sketches and stories, most set in East Texas and several originally published in literary quarterlies like Ploughshares or Kansas Quarterly. Ruffin, a poet, is also editor of The Texas Review. In the title piece, Bob Billings, who inherits ``his father's vast holdings in land, oil and banking,'' moves to a large ranch and lives in ``his lonely castle,'' where (according to gossip and local legend) he tells some of the impoverished Mexicans who live on his land that he wants to be their god: If they devote themselves to him, he will take care of their material needs. On the day that he plans to deliver his gospel to them, however, he disappears. The story, told by the cowboys who worked for Billings, is effectively enigmatic. ``The Fox,'' the opening sketch, is about an unhappy farmer's wife who feels ``at times...hate, at other times mere indifference'' for her husband. Driven almost mad by this unhappiness and ambivalence, she finally plunges her hand into an oven-hot pie, ``where it stayed until the burning stopped and there was no feeling left at all.'' Ruffin is best when displaying such near-mad tension: in ``The Beast Within,'' a couple on their way to Houston have car trouble and stop for help at a house where a woman with a gun holds them hostage overnight before they get free. Likewise, in ``Storm,'' another couple--who gave up an urban life for ``one of the sorriest East Texas farms''--study an approaching storm before the husband runs into it and disappears ``like some enchanted boy trying to fly.'' Such moments and images--set in a Texas where landscape only emphasizes loneliness and obsession--make even the less effective fictions here striking. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ruffin's rural South is a place where people still work the land and nobody is welcome who doesn't belong there. Says one character, "You're dealing with different people than you've ever dealt before.... These people do what their parents did and their parents before them, and on and on." The rules are simple, and there is no need to discuss them unless they are crossed. A husband and wife cross the line by getting a flat tire and asking for help. They're welcomed inside at gunpoint by a deranged survivalist who imprisons them overnight. But hey, it's that kind of place. There is much more to these stories too, elements that make for a quality collection. The talented Ruffin has an ear for language and dialogue and writes with a hardened American elegance. Recommended.
- Brian Geary, West Seneca, N.Y.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ruffin, editor of the esteemed Texas Review, allows his experience as a poet to shine through in these 11 stories of hope and despair (mostly the latter). Readers who enjoy Larry McMurtry's work--tales of lonely people trapped in the desolation of Texas--will find a similar setting here; for instance, "The Beast Within," where an estranged young couple meets up with a paranoid old woman who packs a .44 magnum. One of the strongest stories is the title one, in which a man inherits his wealthy father's oil business; the trouble is, the man has no desire to run the business, only to be loved and revered--literally--by the Mexican villagers of his homemade town. An eerie, melancholy story, "The Man Who Would Be God," finishes out a worthwhile assortment of short fiction that would enhance any regional or general fiction collection. Mary Frances Wilkens

Edition details

• Publisher: Southern Methodist Univ Pr
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0870743546
• ISBN 13: 9780870743542
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 168