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The Continental Divide: Stories
A country woman makes a Sophie's Choice regarding her family's survival. A small town marshal hunts his own son for murder. A former football hero must face his role in a brutal locker room ritual. Ferocious and real, the fourteen tales in Bob Johnson's blistering debut The Continental Divide explore the undertow of violence and sin along the St. Lawrence Divide in northern Indiana, where men, women, and children struggle to find their way in the darkness . . . of the divide.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
232 pages, Paperback
Published February 11, 2025
9 people are currently reading
717 people want to read
About the author
Bob Johnson
1 book5 followersBob Johnson is an award-winning short story writer and graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop. His work has been published by The Common, Philadelphia Stories, Vol. 1. Brooklyn, The Barcelona Review, and elsewhere. His story “The Continental Divide” was named Short Story of the Year in The Hudson Review. He lives in South Bend, Indiana.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
February 15, 2025
200 pages of short stories which highlight the darker side of the human experience. Superbly written and leaving you wanting more with each story you finish. Even though this was not my usual genre I found it hard to put down.
April 1, 2025
Set in a small tough town in Indiana, these stories involve crime, violence and some kind of depravity. They are well written. The subject matter just wore me down. I did not find a lot of redemption here. There were Flannery O'Connor type twists, but not as nuanced and artful.
September 17, 2025
A masterful, dazzling collection of short stories. I was reminded of the fine craftwork from short story masters such as Carver, or, even more so here, Flannery O’Connor. The endings are perfect in their simplicity - they are earned, yet they are unexpected. Bob Johnson crafts a tale with language so vivid, so gorgeous, that the pain and humanity in these stories shines through like a beacon. This is the kind of prose we should be reading - stories that stop you in your tracks with a line here and there, a character decision that makes you upset, and an ending that makes you think that everything we do is inevitable. One of the best collections of 2025. Please read.
September 8, 2025
Oof, don’t think I’ll be stopping in Indiana anytime soon! Poignant, honest stories about people you pass by and don’t give a second thought about. Imperfect folks whose stories are told with compassion and directness.
April 23, 2025
Violent at times but moving. Midwestern stories. Not interconnected as such but some characters appear in more than one story. The town itself feels like a character.
August 13, 2025
This is a book of fourteen stories about hard people living hard lives, in and around a small town in Indiana. Each story stands alone, but some characters overlap throughout, and the overall picture Johnson paints is of a town with a variety of dysfunctions. There are cops, drug addicts, preachers, high-school dreamers, sex predators, Amish farmers, stressed-out parents, elderly folks who have fallen through the cracks. Johnson’s voice is fresh and superbly in control, and it propels forward even those stories that don’t quite work. (In the acknowledgments, he thanks his wife, who sometimes reads a new story and says, “I don’t get it.” I had that reaction a few times myself.)
The title story is a highlight. The conclusion wrapped things up a bit too quickly for my taste, but that hardly matters—Johnson’s voice kept me on the hook from beginning to end, and the characters felt genuinely alive, hard and glittery as diamonds, compelling and infuriating in equal measure. These are people you would want to avoid in real life, but on the page, you want to rip them open and see what makes their hearts beat.
Johnson is writing what I suppose you’d call Midwest literature, since everything happens in rural Indiana, but it’s easy to see his influences from another region. The story titled “Lady Liberty,” like many others, is lurid and over-the-top, but its central character—an overscrupulous and underemployed 40-year-old man named Edmond who lives with his mother—recalls many figures from mid-twentieth-century Southern literature, often from equally lurid stories, like any number of Flannery O’Connor’s stay-at-home losers, or Ignatius Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces. Like them, Edmond plays out a kind of irony in his character, in that he believes himself elevated over all the rubes and idiots he is forced to share space with in his podunk town—this belief is manifestly false, yet at the same time, he really does stand out in the story as a vivid specimen of humanity, gaudy and ludicrous against a bland background.
Johnson’s journey as a writer might also be inspiring for some. As he says in the afterword, he wrote short stories and got an MFA decades ago, then hung it up to get a job and raise a family. He started writing again—in his fifties, maybe? (I don’t know his exact age)—and this is his first collection.
The title story is a highlight. The conclusion wrapped things up a bit too quickly for my taste, but that hardly matters—Johnson’s voice kept me on the hook from beginning to end, and the characters felt genuinely alive, hard and glittery as diamonds, compelling and infuriating in equal measure. These are people you would want to avoid in real life, but on the page, you want to rip them open and see what makes their hearts beat.
Johnson is writing what I suppose you’d call Midwest literature, since everything happens in rural Indiana, but it’s easy to see his influences from another region. The story titled “Lady Liberty,” like many others, is lurid and over-the-top, but its central character—an overscrupulous and underemployed 40-year-old man named Edmond who lives with his mother—recalls many figures from mid-twentieth-century Southern literature, often from equally lurid stories, like any number of Flannery O’Connor’s stay-at-home losers, or Ignatius Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces. Like them, Edmond plays out a kind of irony in his character, in that he believes himself elevated over all the rubes and idiots he is forced to share space with in his podunk town—this belief is manifestly false, yet at the same time, he really does stand out in the story as a vivid specimen of humanity, gaudy and ludicrous against a bland background.
Johnson’s journey as a writer might also be inspiring for some. As he says in the afterword, he wrote short stories and got an MFA decades ago, then hung it up to get a job and raise a family. He started writing again—in his fifties, maybe? (I don’t know his exact age)—and this is his first collection.
April 8, 2025
Dark and brutal are the two words that perfectly sum up this story collection. Dark as in darker-than-Stephen-King dark.
The title story is masterfully written.
'Plucked from the Lame and Afflicted' begins with a priest checking into a hotel, planning to share a bed with an 18-year-old boy. As one reviewer wrote, "What happens is much more grotesque than you expect."
"Tell Me About Bobby Kennedy" and "The Half Hour" are beautifully painful.
These stories are incredibly disturbing, but quite well written. I look forward to reading more by Bob Johnson!
The title story is masterfully written.
'Plucked from the Lame and Afflicted' begins with a priest checking into a hotel, planning to share a bed with an 18-year-old boy. As one reviewer wrote, "What happens is much more grotesque than you expect."
"Tell Me About Bobby Kennedy" and "The Half Hour" are beautifully painful.
These stories are incredibly disturbing, but quite well written. I look forward to reading more by Bob Johnson!
November 25, 2025
Hicktown, Indiana, isn’t a life sentence, but I suppose no one ever tells people they’re free to leave whenever they choose. This story collection is sort of like a prose retelling of an opera in which South Park’s “Uncle Fucker” song is one of the arias. His invented Indiana town of Mount Moriah with its poor grammar, bad teeth, and willing livestock just seems like fertile territory for uncle fucking, maybe even worse.
If you’re looking for even the faintest shred of joy, hope, redemption, human dignity, or humor, this ain’t for you. What this fictitious Indiana town needs desperately is free birth control handed out in something like an ice cream truck playing “Pop Goes the Weasel,” and for those who miss the call, a mobile abortion clinic (I think the same theme music is appropriate if you think about it).
The Continental Divide
A mother lovingly chops down her own family tree as her only act of defiance against the male creeps in her life. This is a terrible thing to say, but—god’s truth—the world could use better parents or more abortions, fewer mistakes and a lot more people thinking about what having a child means.
Bird Fever
Did turkey poop make our son ill, or was it the cleaning supplies under his bed? We will never know.
Plucked From the Lame and Afflicted
Any story that begins, “There was only one vacancy, a room with a double bed, when Nelson and Pastor Snow checked into the motel,” is gonna be good, right, at least for all the Catholic priests out there. Spoiler alert to Catholic priests, Nelson just finished high school, and he’s just shy of adulthood. WAH, WAh, wah, waaahhh. Is that how you write the sound-effect of all the priests suddenly losing their erections?
https://www.myinstants.com/en/instant...
Please, Mister, Please
Uncle Fucker out for a quiet drive in the country is passively ambushed by Bonnie and Cletus the slack-jawed yokel. This was my favorite of the bunch.
Blue Moon
I didn’t get this one. Corn holing in the locker room? Cam on both ends of whatever it was that went somewhere that made reporters flock to the courthouse at Uncle-Fucker-ville, Indiana. Cam left football-less and now he was losing his gal Penny to some half-a-homo (He's nice to women, must be gay, right?) at the insurance agency. Spoiler Alert: it was a plunger, no details on which end went where, exactly. Rectum? Nearly killed’m.
Man on the Tracks
Learning that he’s good at building a character and an atmosphere, but the stories don’t have much in the way of beginnings, middles, and endings. If you don't deal with your anger issues, you'll end up in at the bottom of a trash dumpster with your ex fuck buddy from the can.
Little Dude
I just couldn’t make it through this one. Sorry, little dude.
Lady Liberty
Almost had an entire story here, but then it ends when the cop walks up to Edmond's door and hears some weird noises which could've been Edmond jerking off. Cop got scared off. Moma's boy turned moma poisoner just like that. The author conjures extreme violence like coaxing a genie out of a lamp with only a rub with the hand—no pun intended, or was it?
The Half Hour
“Turd Painting” is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as hoisting unearned praise upon something base and without merit, in this case a young woman named Maizey with scaly elbows. Eew! I mean, she’s tall and has nice legs, but scaly elbows? She’s nothing less than a monster (note to self: google “scaly elbows”). Once again, not much of a story here and Mount Moriah, Indiana, desperately needs a Planned Parenthood.
The Devil’s Age
Another story in this collection that can be filed under “Shit Parenting.” I love my dead gay son” and flying off a cliff a la Thelma and Louise seem like mixed metaphors. I mean, not only was his violent son putting lemon in his hair to bring out blond highlights, he was doing it with his friend, probably while they were singing “It’s Raining Men” together.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/bo...
It’s like the reviewer probably hurt himself bending over backwards to find praise for this collection. This comes from the review and I doubt anyone who doesn’t have an MFA in creative writing would understand or care:
“Winesburg” still reads like a correction to American hypocrisy. Rather than community, there’s betrayal, repression and isolation founded in secrets that distort its citizens’ inner lives. Johnson’s book reads not like an imitation of Anderson, but as a fellow traveler. Secrets and betrayals remain prominent, although interiority is less integral than it is in “Winesburg.” In Johnson’s Indiana, psychic pain manifests as physical violence, while wickedness assumes the shape of a psychopath…
Huh? “interiority is less integral…” My eyes rolled back in my head so hard I fell over. I can't wait to use those words in a sentence. I guarantee that whatever the context, they won't make any less sense than in that review,
If you’re looking for even the faintest shred of joy, hope, redemption, human dignity, or humor, this ain’t for you. What this fictitious Indiana town needs desperately is free birth control handed out in something like an ice cream truck playing “Pop Goes the Weasel,” and for those who miss the call, a mobile abortion clinic (I think the same theme music is appropriate if you think about it).
The Continental Divide
A mother lovingly chops down her own family tree as her only act of defiance against the male creeps in her life. This is a terrible thing to say, but—god’s truth—the world could use better parents or more abortions, fewer mistakes and a lot more people thinking about what having a child means.
Bird Fever
Did turkey poop make our son ill, or was it the cleaning supplies under his bed? We will never know.
Plucked From the Lame and Afflicted
Any story that begins, “There was only one vacancy, a room with a double bed, when Nelson and Pastor Snow checked into the motel,” is gonna be good, right, at least for all the Catholic priests out there. Spoiler alert to Catholic priests, Nelson just finished high school, and he’s just shy of adulthood. WAH, WAh, wah, waaahhh. Is that how you write the sound-effect of all the priests suddenly losing their erections?
https://www.myinstants.com/en/instant...
Please, Mister, Please
Uncle Fucker out for a quiet drive in the country is passively ambushed by Bonnie and Cletus the slack-jawed yokel. This was my favorite of the bunch.
Blue Moon
I didn’t get this one. Corn holing in the locker room? Cam on both ends of whatever it was that went somewhere that made reporters flock to the courthouse at Uncle-Fucker-ville, Indiana. Cam left football-less and now he was losing his gal Penny to some half-a-homo (He's nice to women, must be gay, right?) at the insurance agency. Spoiler Alert: it was a plunger, no details on which end went where, exactly. Rectum? Nearly killed’m.
Man on the Tracks
Learning that he’s good at building a character and an atmosphere, but the stories don’t have much in the way of beginnings, middles, and endings. If you don't deal with your anger issues, you'll end up in at the bottom of a trash dumpster with your ex fuck buddy from the can.
Little Dude
I just couldn’t make it through this one. Sorry, little dude.
Lady Liberty
Almost had an entire story here, but then it ends when the cop walks up to Edmond's door and hears some weird noises which could've been Edmond jerking off. Cop got scared off. Moma's boy turned moma poisoner just like that. The author conjures extreme violence like coaxing a genie out of a lamp with only a rub with the hand—no pun intended, or was it?
The Half Hour
“Turd Painting” is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as hoisting unearned praise upon something base and without merit, in this case a young woman named Maizey with scaly elbows. Eew! I mean, she’s tall and has nice legs, but scaly elbows? She’s nothing less than a monster (note to self: google “scaly elbows”). Once again, not much of a story here and Mount Moriah, Indiana, desperately needs a Planned Parenthood.
The Devil’s Age
Another story in this collection that can be filed under “Shit Parenting.” I love my dead gay son” and flying off a cliff a la Thelma and Louise seem like mixed metaphors. I mean, not only was his violent son putting lemon in his hair to bring out blond highlights, he was doing it with his friend, probably while they were singing “It’s Raining Men” together.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/bo...
It’s like the reviewer probably hurt himself bending over backwards to find praise for this collection. This comes from the review and I doubt anyone who doesn’t have an MFA in creative writing would understand or care:
“Winesburg” still reads like a correction to American hypocrisy. Rather than community, there’s betrayal, repression and isolation founded in secrets that distort its citizens’ inner lives. Johnson’s book reads not like an imitation of Anderson, but as a fellow traveler. Secrets and betrayals remain prominent, although interiority is less integral than it is in “Winesburg.” In Johnson’s Indiana, psychic pain manifests as physical violence, while wickedness assumes the shape of a psychopath…
Huh? “interiority is less integral…” My eyes rolled back in my head so hard I fell over. I can't wait to use those words in a sentence. I guarantee that whatever the context, they won't make any less sense than in that review,
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 25, 2025
Bob Johnson’s debut collection is a dark, often brutal look at small-town Indiana life. Set in the fictional Mount Moriah - with nods to real places like Fort Wayne and the Plainfield Correctional Facility - these stories explore people giving in to their worst instincts, often with devastating consequences.
The strongest entries, "The Continental Divide," "Please, Mister, Please" and "Lady Liberty" - read like tightly wound crime thrillers, full of tension and moral ambiguity. Others, like "Tell Me About Bobby Kennedy" and "The Half Hour," offer quieter moments of emotional reflection and show Johnson’s range when he steps away from violence.
Still, the collection leans heavily on recurring themes of addiction, abuse and toxic masculinity. While grounded in reality, the repetition makes some stories blur together. A few feel underdeveloped or too familiar.
But Johnson’s talent is clear. He knows how to build a world, develop mood and create characters who feel real - flawed, desperate and sometimes beyond saving. If future work brings more tonal balance, he could become a standout voice in contemporary fiction.
Thanks to Cornerstone Press and Kaye Publicity for the gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
The strongest entries, "The Continental Divide," "Please, Mister, Please" and "Lady Liberty" - read like tightly wound crime thrillers, full of tension and moral ambiguity. Others, like "Tell Me About Bobby Kennedy" and "The Half Hour," offer quieter moments of emotional reflection and show Johnson’s range when he steps away from violence.
Still, the collection leans heavily on recurring themes of addiction, abuse and toxic masculinity. While grounded in reality, the repetition makes some stories blur together. A few feel underdeveloped or too familiar.
But Johnson’s talent is clear. He knows how to build a world, develop mood and create characters who feel real - flawed, desperate and sometimes beyond saving. If future work brings more tonal balance, he could become a standout voice in contemporary fiction.
Thanks to Cornerstone Press and Kaye Publicity for the gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
March 28, 2025
A first-rate collection about characters who discover hard truths about themselves and the people they love. Each story is superb on its own, and the collection as a whole adds up to more than the sum of its parts. Beautiful writing and poignant psychological portraits. The best of what fiction can offer.
June 11, 2025
Gruesome subject matter, but I couldn't stop reading. One reviewer observed that there is little redemption in this collection of stories, and yet they are believable and even familiar. Set in Indiana, many of the stories are connected by the small town of Mount Moriah which almost becomes a character in the collection.
July 16, 2025
4.5 rounded down. I love short stories, but the problem with a compilation is you can’t help but compare them to each other in the same volume. Some of these stories were magnificent. The rest were very very good. All in all highly recommend us if you like short stories. Creepy, dark, Shirley Jackson-esque.
April 7, 2025
Johnson writes a neat set of short stories about people someplace in Indiana. Some of the people show up in several stories. Everyone is a normal person, struggling with life and trying to make the best of things. Tragedy abounds but hope does glimmer.
June 15, 2025
Most of the stories in this collection will stay with me for a good, long time. Johnson has done a yeoman's job of capturing small-town misfortune and despair. Some stories rang so true that they hurt to read, but putting the book down was not a possibility. Highly recommended!
July 9, 2025
I picked this book of short stories up because I grew up in the Midwest and the cover mentioned that. It’s a book of stories about angry men and how their anger affects those around them. Although I like how the writer wrote this book was not really for me.
March 22, 2025
Powerful stories about the darker side of the human experience, beautifully written. Some uncomfortable/ hard to read.
May 7, 2025
An arresting collection of short fiction brimming with memorable characters and jaw dropping scenes. I’ll remember this one for a long time! Can’t wait to see a novel from you, Bob!! :)
May 24, 2025
Great short story collection. Best one is The Continental Divide.
June 21, 2025
This is one of the collections of short stories I've ever read! The author lives in South Bend, Indiana, which is my hometown, and the stories are set in and around that area.
August 4, 2025
This is good debut, but I found it a little too dark. It lacked a bit of hope.
August 17, 2025
Dark and brutal in a nice midwestern way!
November 13, 2025
The stories were bleak but well written
May 1, 2025
Johnson shows off his talent for writing flawed yet fascinating characters in The Continental Divide. The very first story sets the tone so that readers will know what to expect from the get-go. Readers will also recognize names among the stories, helping to familiarize them with the sad rural town. I highly recommend this collection for those who enjoy literary fiction with a dark twist.
In-depth book review: https://cantinabookclub.com/review/th...
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In-depth book review: https://cantinabookclub.com/review/th...
Podcast interview coming soon!
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews