Enough to Lose

by R.S. Deeren

In nine captivating short stories, RS Deeren presents a vivid portrait of life in rural Michigan. Small family farms are dwarfed by looming wind turbines and are transformed into corporate enterprises; polarizing local and national politics turn neighbor against neighbor and raze long-standing community allegiances; hard-working families fight for survival in a home that is increasingly unrecognizable and untenable. Exploring the limitations of rugged individualism in the face of relentless economic downturn, these stories feature recurring characters and narratives that span from the Great Flood of 1986 to the 2016 presidential election. With unflinching empathy, Deeren weaves together the colorful lives of landscapers, hunters, artists, parolees, retirees, and entrepreneurs, characters who reckon with their relationship to this unique slice of the rural Midwest. Enough to Lose reveals how a region resistant to change and outside intervention struggles to adapt and leaves locals feeling left behind. Deeren artfully illustrates the brutal realities of working-class rural life that are punctuated by moments of beauty, humor, and resilience.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Book Club

173 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 5, 2023

Reviews

[Nancy]

Interconnected stories set in Caro, Michigan, a rural community in Michigan's "Thumb," and the author's hometown.

Wonderful portrayals, deep insight into the community, made this an enjoyable and moving read.

[Dan McCarthy]

A collection of interwoven short stories based around Caro, MI and the Thumb of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. These are stories of poor folks, who have to hunt deer to have any meat on the table, or are left with little choices to better their situation after a brush with the law.

Phil Neel calls the these regions the American Hinterland - regions hollowed out by late stage capitalism, left populated with the few who can't get out to a nearby city for one reason or another. And Deeren captures their interlacing stories with the respect and gravitas of someone who has lived among them.

A great book that brought me back to the Saginaw Valley, and the time spent with those from the area, like Ray.

[Amanda]

You cannot just read this book once!

Enough to lose is an emotion provoking collection of stories that depict the economic hardships and locational struggles of living in the rural Midwest.

In this collection R.S Deeren strings together the lives of every day people struggling to preserve and adapt in The Thumb of Michigan. Each character and story seemingly unrelated however present in each of each others' lives; a great representation of living in a small town of Michigan.

R.S. Deeren has a talent for getting you emotionally invested with each turned page, leaving us shocked in his literary wake. This book will have you eager to reread it just so you can relive the entanglement of connections shared throughout all over again.

Highly recommended.

[Kristen Gere]

This is a collection of short stories all focused on people living in rural Tuscola County Michigan.
I don't typically read short story collections, so I don't have much to compare this to.

I found the stories well-written; some I enjoyed more than others. A few left me wanting more, while a few felt too long-winded and dragging.
I appreciated reading about landmarks I am familiar with, and could easily place myself in the setting for the majority of the stories.

If you like this genre, I would give this book a try. My main goal for reading this was because the author is doing a visit at a local library soon, and I was curious about a book that is set so close to home for me.

I'd give this 3.5 stars. The first story in the book was by far the most riveting for me.

[Kace]

Hard and real. There’s no real “why” to these characters’ actions but there’s a lot of reason, which to me captures rurality (and rural lives and humanity) quite well. Found the people frustrating and familiar, the entanglement of the stories subtle and comforting, and the climaxes true to living in a forgotten and changing part of the US.

[Dawn Foster]

Where do I begin to review this lovely book of short stories that so profoundly captures the lives of ordinary people with such depth of humanity, reality, heartbreak, and resilience?

Enough to Lose by Raymond Deeren** is comprised of 9 stories that, on the surface, appear to be stand-alone snippets of everyday lives in small towns in and around the "thumb of Michigan." As you meander from story to story, you slowly realize that these 'ordinary' lives are more than they first appear. Characters face unbearable sadness and strength in friendship, and eventually the reader sees the thread that connects the stories.

** I happen to know the author; he has published other books, but this is the first one I've read. All that aside, I strongly recommend this book!!!

[Brooks Lamb]

"Enough to Lose" is an excellent collection. The stories are powerful because the characters -- not just the people but the farms, woods, rivers, and towns, too -- are so real, and the characters are so real because the author can empathize with them. Plus, it doesn't hurt that the author is a very talented writer and storyteller.

I'm not from Michigan. In fact, I've never been there. But these stories make a particular place in the Thumb region feel familiar, and the book's themes spill beyond geographic boundaries into rural places throughout the country.

Give this book a read. You won't regret it.

[Yvette Collins]

It’s been a long time since I’ve finished a compilation of short stories and I thought each story was a gem. I like reading short stories, but sometimes compilations are a mixed bag of one or two really strong stories and just okay others. This collection was solid. Each was well written and beautifully told about the lives of real people. The individual nine stories were great reads, and I loved how the last one masterfully linked the other stories. This was my first time reading RS Deeren’s work, but it won’t be my last.

[Amy Tratt]

I don't usually like short story collections - too much starting over just as I get engaged. This collection was different for me. Maybe because it is based in Michigan, near where I lived and worked for 20 years. Maybe because this author's stories are so well-written and so subtly connected - but you won't realize it until you get about half-way through!

An easy, enjoyable read that leaves you really thinking about those who live a harder life in Michigan's thumb.

[K.K. Fox]

"'So, how are we supposed to raise a kid without a house?' I knew I was talking to a guy who I had no business talking at. And maybe he was thinking, Who the hell does this kid think he is? but I didn't feel the need to justify myself. Sometimes you just want to talk and damn whoever is stuck listening to you. 'There's a way of things, Rid,' I said. 'A plan of action.'

'It's all broad strokes, kid,' he said

'Excuse me?'

'You heard me. All this,' he waved his hand over the steering wheel, across the windshield. 'Chaos.'" (p.38)

"It wasn't hard to believe when you looked at Brett. He fit right in with his trophies: His beard exploded off his face, and it looked like he'd never met a barber he'd liked." (p.49)

"I remember looking away from him then, up at the clock mounted behind a clock-sized cage on the wall. I resented him, then, for thinking he left as a choice and then had the nerve to say he'd grown." (p.63)

"He smelled like a worker, like a body that didn't know what to do with itself it it sat around too long. He smelled like a Jeff or a Cal." (p.68)

"There was no guarantee that she was going to let me have it. She used to say the only two things that can make a person mean are time and other people. With me, she'd had both." (p.116)

"I watched the Mikes talk and I saw how a single body could carry with it two lives: one that walks through the day, balancing every deal and decision needed to be made with who will benefit or hurt from them, planning for the countless tomorrows and familiar cycles to come. The second, a life always awake in the way things used to be, sitting in a thousand yesterdays of fast food, jungle gyms, and PO piss tests, dancing to the tune of every needless argument." (p.124)

"Folks who have no choices end up making mostly dumb ones, Marcy thought. Being young, it seemed, killed too many people nowadays." (p.161)

[Bonnie Campbell]

Loved this book so much. I think R.S. Deeren is already a very important writers, creating work about a part of the world that has not been explored. Here is what I wrote in my endorsement:

This book is the best thing I've read lately, with its dead-on depictions of rural life, both beautiful and heart-wrenching. With its floods, guns, car wrecks, dangerous bridges, bars that 'stay open out of habit,' there's a lot at stake here. Deeren is a keen observer of what age, poverty, and bad luck can do to a body: forty-five is, he says, 'the age where you'll have enough to lose that you'll lose yourself in the process of trying to hold onto everything.' Some of his characters live so close to the edge that the failure of a freezer might mean going hungry, while others move closer to the edge to feel alive or to grieve fully. If you say these characters are stubbornly behind the times, it's because they are not buying what America is offering them-they are holding out for something better and more meaningful. They have tasted the sweetness of romantic love, they have felt in their bones the elegance of a deer crossing a river. Deeren's strong, sure, authentic voice sings the songs of Michigan, and you should listen.

[Dylan Baker]

Amazing book! This collection of stories is not my traditional read, but when I was recommended it by my teacher, Mr. Butterfield, I was very excited. It was an overall refreshing take on the sadder side of life. Also, being a michigander, (I’m from mid-michigan) this was a very accurate take on our area of the world trying to catch up with everything else. Overall, amazing and satisfying read, I would highly recommend!

[jimtown]

Very insightful collection of short stories co-coordinated by all being centered in the same small town area of Caro, Michigan. The stories link different bits of people with vivid descriptions of a vanishing life. They have almost a 70's feel but time moves slower in places like Caro and the stories are more modern in this recent artful collection. Very well done.

[Sean Kottke]

A stellar, brutal, and beautiful collection of interconnected short stories set in Michigan’s Thumb.

[David]

Short stories, interrelated, about the denizens of Michigan’s thumb.Deeren, a native of the area, writes knowledgeable and lovably about these folks, most of whom are struggling to make ends meet.

[Merrily]

Michigan Bridge selection. Good short stories set in Dearborn.

[Trisha]

Slice of life short stories from Caro, MI. Realistic to say the least.

[Jessica Johnston]

What a beautiful community of stories. In ENOUGH TO LOSE, the characters from each story are connected in some way, bound by the same isolated setting of Caro, Michigan. It gives the feeling of reading a novel, but one where each set of characters gets to shine in their respective tales. It's like listening to an album of songs about rural Michigan. From the heartbreaking first story to the last hopeful note, these stories stick with you like memories from a place you haven't visited in a while.

[MattA]

A fantastic collection of short stories that I can’t recommend highly enough. I endorse the other 5-star reviews here and won’t go into too much detail to avoid repetition. I’ll only add the following random thoughts:

Although this is a collection of standalone stories, they share common settings and even common characters. A main character from one story may end up in the background of another, or the son or daughter of some other background character may come to the fore two stories later on. So pay attention to the names, it will serve you well as you read through the collection. Even though the settings and characters are shared, the time frame shifts from story to story. Some take place back in the 1980s, others in later years all the way up to the late teens. So pay attention to the time frames as well.

I’ve never lived in Michigan's Thumb but I was raised in the tri-cities just to the west and have lived nearly thirty years down near the Oakland County line just to the south. The regionalisms here strike me as true. The peppering of historic events (e.g., the 1986 flood, which is the setting of the first story in the collection) only adds to the authenticity.

The intertwining stories almost give this collection the feeling of a novel, but I’m glad the author kept them as short stories. There’s something truer about presenting these tales as separate rather than one unified narrative. The support (or oppression) of small-town community aside, these people feel more like they are trapped in their own stories, living along side others more than with them, despite similarity of circumstances. There’s something very 21st-century about that.

[Bradley Scott]

This beautifully-written and thought-provoking collection of interconnected short stories set in the rural Thumb of Michigan, written by a native “Thumbody”, sometimes makes for hard reading. The working-class characters in these stories find it hard to earn a living without advantages like money or land ownership. Bad luck, family problems, and natural disasters afflict them, and all too many make it worse for themselves with alcohol, belligerence, unrealistic optimism, or other questionable personal decisions. But they are, nonetheless, interesting and understandable people, and the stories have a fascination about them that pulls the reader in.

Each story involves people who also show up in other stories, allowing them to be seen from multiple viewpoints and with different levels of background knowledge. Places, too, are encountered multiple times, and accumulate emotional weight as the reader begins to know the history of that place, and the hopes and fears and forebodings associated with it. This interthreading of people, places and events mirrors the way that real-life people, places, and events intertwine with each other over time in such sparsely populated places, and echoes the way that most such intimate history lies outside of official records, existing only in the minds and oral recollections of the people involved.

Enough to Lose is part of Wayne State University Press’s Made in Michigan Writer Series.

[Helen Raica-Klotz]

A clever collection of stories set in lower Michigan's "thumb," where the landscape itself is a character. The people who populate these stories are realistic, and treated with a gentle respect by the author -- nicely done.