Whispers in Dust and Bone: Andrew Geyer

by Andrew Geyer

Diverse in setting and broad in range, these award-winning stories all turn, in some way, on the passing of the rural Southwest Texas way of life and its stamp on those who leave there. Ranging from bare-bones narratives to magical realism and ever lush in regional particulars, the stories all center on a sense of place. Sharing a point of origin and a journey, their characters weave in and out of the stories, looking for new starts-for answers-and seeing the world through dry eyes. They explore exotic Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, and a dig site in Peru and make a voyage of discovery down the Amazon River. They lose faith in God and find it again in such unlikely places as a water lot in South Carolina. The displaced protagonists all search for something elusive, something lost, yet in Geyer's hands are yoked by a tension that is somehow always new and always compelling. Andrew Geyer's earthy, edgy, colorful stories range from Texas to Peru, reflecting life's frustrations and occasional small triumphs.―Elmer Kelton The contents...reads like the track listing of some Marty Robbins album-dusty and elegiac, but with that ten-dollar smile, that flash of white teeth under a hat brim. Even when the stories take you to South Carolina, or South America, still, it's Texas. The real one.―Stephen Graham Jones The most important work of fiction to come out of the Southwest since Woman Hollering Creek.―Michael Hathaway

192 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2003

About the author

Andrew Geyer was born in Austin and grew up on a working cattle ranch in Southwest Texas. He lived in Austin again in the 80s and 90s, along with stints in Columbia, South Carolina; Tishomingo, Oklahoma; Lubbock, Texas; Russellville, Arkansas; and Aiken, South Carolina. Geyer has been—among other things—a bartender, a waiter, a busboy, a bellhop, a cashier, a landscaper, a construction worker, a manager at a Birkenstock store, a student, a teacher, and a writer. A lover of the outdoors and an avid runner and canoeist, Geyer has traveled extensively in North America, Central America, South America, Europe, and North Africa.

Andrew Geyer’s latest book is the hybrid story cycle Texas 5X5, a collection of twenty-five interconnected fictional narratives by five Texas writers that was published in 2014 by Stephen F. Austin University Press. His story “Fingers,” the opening piece in the collection, won the 2015 Spur Award for Best Short Fiction from the Western Writers of America. He is the co-editor of the composite anthology A Shared Voice, published by Lamar University Press in 2013. His individually authored books are Dixie Fish (2011), a novel; Siren Songs from the Heart of Austin (2010), a story cycle; Meeting the Dead (2007), a novel; and Whispers in Dust and Bone (2003), a story cycle that won the silver medal for short fiction in the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Awards and a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, he currently serves as Professor and Chair of English at the University of South Carolina Aiken and as fiction editor for Concho River Review.

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review has been revised and can now be found, and goodness knows I wish more of you would, at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud. Pay attention! This book is terrific!

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good solid story collection, with a southwest tone. Nice introduction.

[Ken Hada · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite story collections. Geyer’s wonderful depiction of rural life in sw Texas is augmented by frame stories set in South America recalling his pilgrimage. Excellent writing, highly deseving of its awards.