Scan barcode
savaging's review against another edition
4.0
I noticed something about myself reading this book. I learned that I'm old enough to be bored by stories about young people in dysfunctional relationships. Especially those girls who love the cads who do them wrong. Snore.
But also I learned that in these my elder years I love stories of old people finding lost letters or failing at prospecting in the Nevada desert. Also the final story about extinction and depression and Dumbo's mom. Nothing reached the magic of Gold, Fame, Citrus, but Claire Vaye Watkins is a great writer with a view of the world that keeps me interested and whatever she writes from here I am sure to read.
She herself wrote this beautiful criticism of this book (which I think is too harsh but also illustrative): https://tinhouse.com/on-pandering/
"I wrote Battleborn for white men, toward them. If you hold the book to a certain light, you’ll see it as an exercise in self-hazing, a product of working-class madness, the female strain. So, natural then that Battleborn was well-received by the white male lit establishment: it was written for them. The whole book’s a pander. Look, I said with my stories: I can write old men, I can write sex, I can write abortion. I can write hard, unflinching, unsentimental. I can write an old man getting a boner!"
But also I learned that in these my elder years I love stories of old people finding lost letters or failing at prospecting in the Nevada desert. Also the final story about extinction and depression and Dumbo's mom. Nothing reached the magic of Gold, Fame, Citrus, but Claire Vaye Watkins is a great writer with a view of the world that keeps me interested and whatever she writes from here I am sure to read.
She herself wrote this beautiful criticism of this book (which I think is too harsh but also illustrative): https://tinhouse.com/on-pandering/
"I wrote Battleborn for white men, toward them. If you hold the book to a certain light, you’ll see it as an exercise in self-hazing, a product of working-class madness, the female strain. So, natural then that Battleborn was well-received by the white male lit establishment: it was written for them. The whole book’s a pander. Look, I said with my stories: I can write old men, I can write sex, I can write abortion. I can write hard, unflinching, unsentimental. I can write an old man getting a boner!"
marco_antonio_raya's review
5.0
*Nevada reúne una serie de brillantes relatos ambientados en el medio oeste norteamericano, una suerte de muestrario entre lo descriptivo y lo poético que vibra constantemente con el territorio, presencia determinante en cada una de las historias. Fabuloso.
* Desde los fantasmas de la presencia real del padre de la autora entre los acólitos de Manson, hasta el relato de unos hermanos buscadores de oro que más que riqueza encuentran el horror del vacío y la repetición, pasando por un relato construido a través de cartas dirigidas a alguien que nunca podrá leerlas. En todas las historias se teje una trama de melancolía, misterio, deseo, solastalgia o, simplemente, el pasmo de vivir.
* Muy recomendado para fans de McCarthy, DeLillo o Flannery O’Connor. También para quien guste de las publicaciones de Dirty Works u Horror Vacuii.
* Desde los fantasmas de la presencia real del padre de la autora entre los acólitos de Manson, hasta el relato de unos hermanos buscadores de oro que más que riqueza encuentran el horror del vacío y la repetición, pasando por un relato construido a través de cartas dirigidas a alguien que nunca podrá leerlas. En todas las historias se teje una trama de melancolía, misterio, deseo, solastalgia o, simplemente, el pasmo de vivir.
* Muy recomendado para fans de McCarthy, DeLillo o Flannery O’Connor. También para quien guste de las publicaciones de Dirty Works u Horror Vacuii.
cgpc's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
sarihelikopter's review against another edition
4.0
Nevada başlığıyla Yüz Kitap'tan (Zeynep Baransel çevirisi ile) çıkan Battleborn'u inanılmaz beğendim. Amerikalı çağdaş kadın öykücülerin dertleri, üslupları, yaklaşımları zaman zaman Türkiyeli çağdaş kadın öykücülerinkinden daha yakın hissettiriyor bana maalesef. Ne çok içedönük ne evrensellik kaygısı taşıyan Watkins öykülerinin her biri de beni ayrı yerden yakaladı. Unconventional aileler, arkadaş kıskançıkları, yalnızlık, eko-kaygı... Hepsinden bir şeyler bulmak mümkün. Nevada teması da Lauren Groff'un Florida'sını hatırlatıyor ister istemez, ona da bayılmıştım. Şöyle Amerika orta batı eyaletleri tek tek öykülense de hepsini okusam keşke diyorum.
asurges's review against another edition
5.0
If I could give this more than five stars I would. These dark and disturbing stories--most of which are centered around Nevada--can be off-putting at first, but beneath them is so much beauty and artistry (and a wry sense of humor) you can't help but admire each one. The Nevada portrayed by Vaye Watkins is of people confronting their true selves on the desert, a landscape where each person must confront, as quoted in the poem that opens the book, one's own bitter heart and to love it for what it is.
rleibrock's review against another edition
4.0
I'm a sucker for these kinds of short stories--sharply written tales of malaise, despair, brutality and aimless unease. Watkins writes darkly complex female characters, The story in which she details the questionable decisions made by a woman facing the demise of relationship is particularly compelling, as is the uncomfortable friendship triangle she sketches out between two female friends and a guy. The stories are set in Nevada and Northern California's Mother Lode country made them all the more interesting to me. Less successful was the story of two brothers mining for gold--here the tale meandered with both purpose and plot falling flat due, at least in part, to the story's concrete pacing.
britanniebond's review against another edition
5.0
MAGICAL. This is what is was like to grow up in Nevada. If you want to know my childhood, read this book.
jdintr's review against another edition
5.0
This is one of my favorite kinds of short-story collections: those that are unified in their sense of place. Following in the American tradition of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology, Willa Cather's Death Comes to the Archbishop, and John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven, Watkins claims her native Nevada as a landscape for some pretty incredible characters.
It's hard to pick a favorite from this collection, with stories set both in the present and during historic periods like the Gold Rush and the wake of the Manson Family murders. I would have to go with the final story, "Graceland," which is a perfect tapestry of storylines and themes that describe the inner lives of two sisters who lost their mother too young. Missing mothers is a theme of several of the stories.
In "The Last Thing We Need" Watkins unwinds the inner workings of guilt and memory in a series of letters written by a character to the owner of some artifacts he found dumped in the desert. Love in all its complications is a theme of both "Virginia City," which covers a true love triangle revolving around a free spirit named Jules, and "The Archivist," in which a woman struggles to let to of relics of a destructive relationship, most of all with the child growing within her.
The landscape and mores of Nevada are best found in "Rondine al Nido," in which two friends lose their innocense in Las Vegas, and "Man-O-War," another one of my favorites, in which a lonely prospector finds himself caring for an abused teenage girl.
It's hard to pick a favorite from this collection, with stories set both in the present and during historic periods like the Gold Rush and the wake of the Manson Family murders. I would have to go with the final story, "Graceland," which is a perfect tapestry of storylines and themes that describe the inner lives of two sisters who lost their mother too young. Missing mothers is a theme of several of the stories.
In "The Last Thing We Need" Watkins unwinds the inner workings of guilt and memory in a series of letters written by a character to the owner of some artifacts he found dumped in the desert. Love in all its complications is a theme of both "Virginia City," which covers a true love triangle revolving around a free spirit named Jules, and "The Archivist," in which a woman struggles to let to of relics of a destructive relationship, most of all with the child growing within her.
The landscape and mores of Nevada are best found in "Rondine al Nido," in which two friends lose their innocense in Las Vegas, and "Man-O-War," another one of my favorites, in which a lonely prospector finds himself caring for an abused teenage girl.
finedanddandy's review against another edition
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
brightshiny's review against another edition
2.0
A collection of short stories about miserable people with whom I did not connect.