Review: Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins

title:  Battleborn [purchase here]

author:  Claire Vaye Watkins

pages: 287

genre: short stories

published: August 2012

source: I received an advanced reader's copy from Riverhead via 

LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.

    "'Dudes,' Danny says, 'that was fucking beautiful.'
     A laugh spreads across Jules's big bright face, ravenous the way a wildfire is.  'I know, right?'
     I laugh too.  These are my friends.  These are the funny, empty things we do so we can be the kind of funny, empty people who do them." (page 257-258, Virginia City)

Battleborn has been my constant companion during my commutes for the past few weeks, and I'm actually pretty disappointed that I finished the book.  I was floored by how talented Claire Vaye Watkins is...her short stories are practically flawless!  Tight, incredibly thoughtfully crafted, richly descriptive...I have a feeling this is a collection I will read and reread for years to come.  

A few standout stories (and it was hard to choose just a few!!!):

The Archivist  The moving account of a woman as she, post-breakup, preserves her past and imagines her future.  Raw and delicate at the same time.

The Past Perfect, The Past Continuous, The Simple Past     An Italian tourist visits a brothel as police comb the desert for his missing traveling companion. The way Watkins chose to end this story was unbelievably perfect.

The Diggings    Imagines two brothers as they travel West at the height of the California Gold Rush, and how their relationship changes when they fail to strike it rich.  Watkins imagery and use of subtle metaphor in this piece was particularly striking.  

Ghosts, Cowboys    Addresses her own family history, which is a big a part of the history of the contemporary American West (her biological father, Paul Watkins, was an early member of the Manson Family, but never participated in the murders and ultimately testified against Manson).  

This marks the first time I have ever said this:  GO BUY THIS BOOK.  NOW.  WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING AT THE MOMENT CAN WAIT.  BUY IT.  You will thank me.  Or wait until I buy it for you.  Chances are, if we're friends, and you're a lit nerd like me, I'll be buying you a copy.  But buy it anyway.  Then you'll have two.  So when you lend it to someone, and they fall in love with it as well and "forget" to give it back, you have a backup copy.

Rubric rating:  8.95  I can't give her a nine, because this is her debut collection...but you bet I will be keeping an eye out for more of her genius.

The Literary Link List

Links to pieces, old and new, on literature:  

• Geoff Mak over at The Millions on Claire Vaye Watkins Battleborn
• Some famous rejection letters over at The Chicago Tribune
• Cover art for the paperback edition Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son over at  Book Riot
• This is just amazing!  Law enforcement composite sketch software creates pictures of literary characters over at The Composites.
• Not sure what to read next?
• Also, all bookshelf porn.  All the time.

Coming next week...

Sorry for the lack of daily posting this week.  I've been spending my evenings watching the morning's Olympic tennis matches!  Of course, I've been pulling for John Isner (who I caught live at the US Open last year and who is also unfortunately out of the running for gold) and Serena Williams and the Bryan brothers, but my heart and allegiance belong to Novak Djokovic and his ridiculous ability to DOMINATE the court...sigh...

(I studied dance for 13+ years and was NEVER that flexible...)

 (I love how, even from this far away, his calf muscles are INSANELY defined!)

(He's so dreamy...)

Semifinals are this morning...REALLY looking forward to catching the Murray-Djokovic match on DVR after work.  But I promise, once Men's and Women's Singles gold medals have been awarded (hopefully Serbia and America respectively will come out on top) you will have my undivided attention again ;)

Here's what to look for on the blog next week:

1) Review of Understories by Tim Horvath

Summary (from the Strand website):  "What if there were a city that consisted only of restaurants? What if Paul Gauguin had gone to Greenland instead of Tahiti? What if there were a field called Umbrology, the study of shadows, where physicists and shadow puppeteers worked side by side? Full of speculative daring though firmly anchored in the tradition of realism, Tim Horvath's stories explore all of this and more? blending the everyday and wondrous to contend with age-old themes of loss, identity, imagination, and the search for human connection. Whether making offhand references to Mystery Science Theater, providing a new perspective on Heidegger's philosophy and forays into Nazism, or following the imaginary travels of a library book, Horvath's writing is as entertaining as it is thought provoking."

2) Ask and ye shall receive!  I was recently asked by a reader to share my thoughts on Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad, a book I've mentioned several times here but never formally reviewed...so look for that next week as well!

Summary (from the Strand website): "'Time's a goon,' as the action moves from the late 1970s to the early 2020s while the characters wonder what happened to their youthful selves and ideals. Egan takes the music business as a case in point for society's monumental shift from the analog to the digital age. Record-company executive Bennie Salazar and his former bandmates from the Flaming Dildos form one locus of action; another is Bennie's former assistant Sasha, a compulsive thief club-hopping in Manhattan when we meet her as the novel opens, a mother of two living out West in the desert as it closes a decade and a half later with an update on the man she picked up and robbed in the first chapter. It can be alienating when a narrative bounces from character to character, emphasizing interconnections rather than developing a continuous story line, but Egan conveys personality so swiftly and with such empathy that we remain engaged. By the time the novel arrives at the year '202-' in a bold section narrated by Sasha's 12-year-old daughter Alison, readers are ready to see the poetry and pathos in the small nuggets of information Alison arranges like a PowerPoint presentation. In the closing chapter, Bennie hires young dad Alex to find 50 'parrots' (paid touts masquerading as fans) to create 'authentic' word of mouth for a concert. This new kind of viral marketing is aimed at 'pointers,' toddlers now able to shop for themselves thanks to 'kiddie handsets' the preference of young adults for texting over talking is another creepily plausible element of Egan's near-future. Yet she is not a conventional dystopian novelist; distinctions between the virtual and the real may be breaking down in this world, but her characters have recognizable emotions and convictions, which is why their compromises and uncertainties continue to move us.Another ambitious change of pace from talented and visionary Egan, who reinvents the novel for the 21st century while affirming its historic values."


I'm almost finished both Claire Vaye Watkin's powerhouse of a short story collection, Battleborn, and Ben Marcus' The Flame Alphabet, so reviews for those should be up soon as well!

What I'm Reading

A few of the titles I'm reading this week...

1.  The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus

Finally arrived from my holds list!  Fist of all, such a well designed cover!!!  I'm about 20 pages in and am finding it to be a really strong read so far...

Summary: (from the Strand website) "A terrible epidemic has struck the country and the sound of children’s speech has become lethal. Radio transmissions from strange sources indicate that people are going into hiding. All Sam and Claire need to do is look around the neighborhood: In the park, parents wither beneath the powerful screams of their children. At night, suburban side streets become routes of shameful escape for fathers trying to get outside the radius of affliction. With Claire nearing collapse, it seems their only means of survival is to flee from their daughter, Esther, who laughs at her parents’ sickness, unaware that in just a few years she, too, will be susceptible to the language toxicity. But Sam and Claire find it isn’t so easy to leave the daughter they still love, even as they waste away from her malevolent speech. On the eve of their departure, Claire mysteriously disappears and Sam, determined to find a cure for this new toxic language, presses on alone into a world beyond recognition. Ben Marcus is the author of three previous works of fiction: Notable American Women, The Father Costume, and The Age of Wire and String."

Here's what the good folks at NPR had to say about The Flame Alphabet

2.   Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins

I won this title through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program, and I'm really excited for it to be my subway read.

Summary: (from the Strand website) "A debut collection of 10 short stories re-imagines the mythology of the American West through the experiences of protagonists who endure hardship and violence in the face of such challenges as a foreigner's erotic changes at a prostitution ranch, a hermit's attempt to rescue an abused teen and a woman's role in a friend's degrading Vegas encounter."

3.  There Is No Year by Blake Butler

Impulse library pick up.  The premise sounded really cool, so I'm excited to start it.

Summary: (from the Strand website) Blake Butler’s inventive third novel (Ever, Scorched Atlas) is dedicated 'For no one' and begins with an eerie prologue about the saturation of the world with a damaging light. At times grotesque, at times sexual, always pushing the bounds of plot, form, narrative, and reality, the novel presents a demanding yet unique read - a totally convoluted tale of a family in extreme distress.