Great American Desert

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.