Trashy Behavior

by Jim Sanderson

In this series of linked short stories you will meet folk who inhabit the stark and wild countryside of West Texas, terrain that helps define them as well as the values that elicit many to behave in ways that will startle you. Here are only a few of the characters you will have the privilege of meeting: Otto, a boy who struggles with the slippery nature of words, is captured and tortured by Comanche raiders. Riding with the Comanches is Thomas Jefferson, a black man tries to help Otto. Deputy Sheriff Justan Brady tries in his inept way "to fix Danny Fowler's killing." Dee Price would willingly show you her knife scars as well as her mastectomy scars yet she is still capable of surprising you with her solution to the murder of Danny Fowler. Like many other characters in Trashy Behavior, you will meet Dee Price in more than one story. A young Gregory drives to a ranch to deliver a car to his boss's wife who tries to seduce him, then as he leaves, he runs into two men who blast his car with sawed-off shotguns. There are many other vividly-presented West Texans in the pages of this collection of stories, ones you will remember long after reading the book. While these are linked stories, you can read them in any order, and all of the tales will grab your attention and keep you turning pages. "Bankers"-the story featuring Gregory and his trouble delivering his boss's car-won Kay Cattrulla Award for Short Fiction presented by the Texas Institute of Letters for the best story by a Texan in 2012.

166 pages, Paperback

First published December 7, 2013

About the author

I have always been nervous about claiming to be a writer. I can't depend upon writing to eat. So to eat, I teach. Students sometimes ask me if I am a "famous arthur." I know that I am not a famous arthur.

I have collected a lot labels. I started out as a short story writer, so I have three collections of short fiction. I also started writing essays because I thought that they were easy. So I have an essay collection. I was sort of a "shade tree" sociologist in this collection.

I won a contest for a literary novel about the southwestern U.S. When the novel came out, my editor listed it as a mystery. So I started writing mysteries and have a mystery series with the same characters running around in them. Brash Books as republished three of them. I like being a republished writer.

I wrote a historical novel, which had been bubbling around in my head since I was in the fourth grade. The novel could also be a Western.

I think that I can claim that I am a Texas writer. And I don't mind being labelled a Texas writer. Mostly, because if you draw a line from Lubbock to Beaumont, I've written about parts of Texas south of that line.

One critic said that I write "grit lit.," and put me in some good company. Someone said that I wrote southwestern neo-noir.

So check out a few of my books and label me as you like. I'll probably welcome the label. However, I know that I am not a "famous arthur."