Bring Me Your Saddest Arizona (Iowa Short Fiction Award) - Softcover

Harty, Ryan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0877458693 ISBN 13: 9780877458692

Publisher: University Of Iowa Press, 2003

Synopsis

The vast, unsettling landscape of the American Southwest is as much a character in Ryan Harty's debut collection, Bring Me Your Saddest Arizona, as the men and women who inhabit its award-winning stories. In eight vivid tales of real life in the west, Harty reminds us that life's greatest challenge may be to find the fine balance between desire and obligation.

A high school football player must make a choice between family and friends when his older brother commits an act of senseless violence. A middle-aged man must fly to Las Vegas to settle his dead sister's estate, only to discover that he must first confront his guilt over his sister's death. A young teacher tries to help a homeless girl, but, as their lives intertwine, he begins to understand that his generosity is motivated by his own relenting sense of lonliness. Well-intentioned but ultimately human, the characters in these stories often fall short of achieving grace. But the possibility of redemption, like the Sonoran Desert at the edge of Bring Me Your Saddest Arizona's suburban landscapes, is never far off. Harty's characters are as complicated as the people we know, and his vision of life in the west is as hopeful as it is strikingly real.

About this title

About the Author

A graduate of University of California-Berkeley and the Iowa Writers Workshop, Ryan Harty grew up in Arizona and Northern California. His stories have been widely published in literary magazines, including Tin House and the Missouri Review, and have received a Henfield-Transatlantic Review Award. He currently lives in San Francisco and teaches at Stanford University, where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow.

Reviews

The stark landscapes of the desert Southwest form the backdrop for Harty's poignant and intelligent debut collection. Two of the eight stories explore the complicated relationships between brothers: a young football player feels the pull of opposing loyalties when his brother, home from the Marines, kills a rival's dog in "What Can I Tell You About My Brother"; in "Crossroads," a Marine bound for Vietnam and his younger brother go to a Led Zeppelin concert in a debauched outing that might be one of their last, best times. Harty shows a keen interest in characters who are down on their luck, as in "Between Tubac and Tumacacori," in which a heroin addict tempts his former partner to leave his girlfriend and begin dealing again, but suffers a twinge of conscience. The longest story is also one of the most affectingly unusual: in "Don't Call It Christmas," Will, a low-level writing instructor in San Francisco, embarks on a hesitantly tender affair with a tough homeless girl while his mother lies comatose in an Arizona hospital; the girl's gutterpunk boyfriend causes trouble, but when Will's mother wakes, happiness seems briefly possible. "Why the Sky Turns Red When the Sun Goes Down" explores the emotional side of a technologically advanced future, as a couple agonizes over their beloved robotic son, who has begun to experience mechanical breakdowns. No one would call these stories uplifting, or optimistic, but they are all fully realized and elegantly told-and often quietly surprising. Hardy excels at creating a three-dimensional desert suburbia populated by seeking, reaching characters, for whom happiness is always just a bit out of reach.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

*Starred Review* The eight stories in this stellar collection are almost unbearably sad. Loneliness and desperation run high in the arid suburban communities of Harty's Arizona. In "Ongchoma," Lynn has lost her passion for Italian literature and spends her evenings drinking tequila poppers and kamikazes. Her closest friend is a gay colleague with a violent boyfriend. The two distract each other with impressively witty comments and find comfort in a game of make-believe, in which he plays her construction worker-husband who takes her to Sedona on the weekends in their pop-up camper, and their life is "simple and good." In "Crossroads," Seth, who is movie-star handsome and has just enlisted in the marines, take his little brother, Wren, to a Led Zeppelin concert. Their whole complicated relationship plays out over the course of the evening as they shot-gun beers and impress each other with wise-ass remarks. Both of them come away from the evening with a renewed sense of possibility that will be completely obliterated in the coming months. Harty displays an incredibly assured sense of storytelling in his first book, grounding his stories in telling details, noble gestures, and a palpable sense of place. His stories will break your heart. Joanne Wilkinson
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Edition details

• Publisher: University Of Iowa Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0877458693
• ISBN 13: 9780877458692
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 174