Blue Spruce: Stories

by David Long

With Blue Spruce, David Long emerges as one of America's most searching and inventive fiction writers. Most of these twelve stories are set in northwest Montana, near the Canadian border - a beautiful and desolate landscape of glacier-carved mountains and tall sweeps of prairie grass, rustic cabins, and newly built tract homes. Here Long explores the mysteries of life's beginnings, endings, and continuities; the unexpressed or extinguished passions that can crimp and close hearts; and the unexpected longings and quiet pleasures that guide his characters through days and years that seem to slip away.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Short Story Collection

254 pages, Paperback

First published March 14, 1995

Reviews

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Long is one fine writer. His stories are so filled with detail, striking turns of plot, and remarkable, thoroughly believable characters they are almost like novels compressed into just a few pages. In the title story, for instance, two sisters-in-law find themselves living together uncomfortably in a family home now thickly, darkly, and suffocatingly surrounded by spruce trees, which one of them decides to have cut down, with predictable and then quite unexpected results. Long fills in around the story line with incidents from family history, glimpses of other characters, some of them dead and gone. The weather and the seasons are noted in evocative detail. The tone and emotional quality of relationships are conveyed in nuances of behavior and realistic dialogue. You catch your breath at the end of a story, as if returning from a long journey.

Long frequently uses women as central characters. The men in their lives are often just walk-ons, especially those for whom there is a romantic interest. They're regarded from a distance as though opaque and almost incomprehensible. The oldest son of a ranching family loses his emotional bearings, is engulfed by a nameless rage and disappears. A woman looks up her brother, who lives in another state, and discovers that he is strangely enmeshed in a hopeless relationship with a demanding invalid. In another story, a woman rents a house from her employer, who takes an unsettling and ambiguous interest in her. A girl has a crush on a boy who leaves college to carry on an affair with a married high school sweetheart.

The stories are mostly set in a small town west of the Rockies in northwest Montana. Here people live their lives on a kind of battleground between the weight of family histories, the receding promise of the West, extremes of climate, and personal isolation within a limiting and loosely knit social fabric. I recommend this collection of stories to readers interested in the modern-day West, small-town living, complex characters, and emotional truths expressed in super fine writing. I also recommend Long's very enjoyable novel, "The Falling Boy."

[Chuckles · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this short story collection a decade ago and it sat in my TBR piles since, until I finally retired and have found time to start playing catch up. Published in 1995, it was already a little dated when I heard about the author and ordered it, but now, even more removed from the era of my youth, the settings feel mire so. Fortunately, the stories transcend time, the author is a very talented short story writer. Most of the stories were set in the Montana area and Pacific Northwest, they have a rural, woodsy, blue colar feeling, with a mix of characters of those who seem to feel trapped, in or destined for unfullfilling lives/jobs straight out of high school, to some who’ve acquired worldly experiences and higher educations. Yet almost all seem to find themselves struggling to survive day to day, whether financially, or spiritually. A brief summary of each of the twelve stories:

Attraction: A teen girl trapped in a unfullfilling life observes a former high school friend who uses her and others, and a boy she is attracted to who squanders his opportunities. 4/5

Perfection: A teen girl deals with witnessing a crime, as she navigates family and relationship stresses. 3.5/5

Lightning: A man returns home to his family ranch to help his parents, amid family tensions with his brother. This was a great story, the characters, setting, atmosphere, and story. 5/5

Talons: A young newlywed has to deal with the affairs of his beloved aunt who unexpectedly passed away. 5/5

Cooperstown: A middleaged man visits a couple whose lives he seriously impacted years ago. 3/5

Blue Spruce: Two sisters in law, with a complex relarionship, share their rural home after the death of the one’s brother, the other’s husband. 5/5

Real Estate: A single mother in an exploitative relationship with her bar owner boss/landlord. 4/5

The Vote: The story of a Montana political campaign worker on the day of the vote. 2/5.

Josephine: A very brief story featuring a man recalling the early days of his marriage. 2/5

Perro Semiundido: A middleaged Montana woman leaves her boyfriend behind to visit her beloved older brother in Seattle, whom has failed to maintain contact with her of late. 4/5

Eggarine: A man recalls his childhood and memories of his loving father. Unlike most others, this story is set in rural Massachussets. 5/5

The New World: A widower, the son of an overbearing self made man, battles his daughter over his indifference towards others. Set in the 1940s. 5/5

A few stories didn’t hit with me, but there are several real gems in this collection making it well worth it.

[Carol_Reads2u · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked these short stories as my bed time stories. It had a vaguely blue feeling throughout the whole book. Picked it up at my local book store and glad I did.

[Alissa Hattman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book of twelve short stories shows the beauty and darkness of everyday life in small-town America. Great examples of character description in “Attraction” and “Perfection,”strong sense of environment in “Blue Spruce,” lovely prose, but mostly I learned about writing 3rd POV narrative voice in many of these stories (especially “Cooperstown” and “Blue Spruce”).

[Peachy · Rating 5 out of 5]

*Autographed copy*
David Long has a knack for descriptions, bringing me back home. Before I realized the stories took place in the northwest, I found myself picturing all the places where I grew up.
His stories are a little sad, not overly dramatic. I think the stars are "Perfection," "Blue Spruce," "Real Estate," and "Eggarine."
A very solid 'good read.'

[Grant · Rating 3 out of 5]

there are a few good stories here.

[Roger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite stories. David Long is one of the best short story writers we have today.

[Marianna Monaco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well crafted stories.
My favorite is the last one, "The New World".