By Terese Svoboda. Mad Creek Books, March 12, 2019.
Water, its use and abuse, trickles through Great American Desert, spanning 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. A family quarrels in “Ogallala Aquifer” as a thousand trucks dump chemical waste 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.
The book was starred by both Booklist and Kirkus.
“[Svoboda’s] enigmatic sentences, elliptical narratives, and percussive plots delve into the possibilities of form, genre, and plausible futures, but always with an eye on the vast subterranean psychologies of her all-too-real creations.” — Kirkus.
“Great American Desert is a devious and extraordinary new collection of stories from one of our best writers, Terese Svoboda.” — Karen Russell.
“Svoboda has brought a poet’s lyrical intensity and factual density to prose fiction, and writes like no one else.” — Tom McGuane.
“Stunning, deeply felt, and uniquely perceptive.” — Los Angeles Review of Books.
“Stories that surprise, disturb, and amuse in equal measure.” — Publisher’s Weekly.
“This is a wonderful, and fiercely original collection for anyone who enjoys fiction in any genre—literary, speculative, horror, romance.” — Litpub.