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Dog Run Moon
In the tradition of Richard Ford, Annie Proulx, and Kent Haruf comes a dazzling debut story collection by a young writer from the American West who has been published in The New Yorker, Granta, and The Best American Short Stories.
A construction worker on the run from the shady local businessman whose dog he has stolen; a Custer’s Last Stand reenactor engaged in a long-running affair with the Native American woman who slays him on the battlefield every year; a middle-aged high school janitor caught in a scary dispute over land and cattle with her former stepson: Callan Wink’s characters are often confronted with predicaments few of us can imagine. But thanks to the humor and remarkable empathy of this supremely gifted writer, the nine stories gathered in Dog Run Moon are universally transporting and resonant.
Set mostly in Montana and Wyoming, near the borders of Yellowstone National Park, this revelatory collection combines unforgettable insight into the fierce beauty of the West with a powerful understanding of human beings. Tender, frequently hilarious, and always electrifying, Dog Run Moon announces the arrival of a bold new talent writing deep in the American grain.
A construction worker on the run from the shady local businessman whose dog he has stolen; a Custer’s Last Stand reenactor engaged in a long-running affair with the Native American woman who slays him on the battlefield every year; a middle-aged high school janitor caught in a scary dispute over land and cattle with her former stepson: Callan Wink’s characters are often confronted with predicaments few of us can imagine. But thanks to the humor and remarkable empathy of this supremely gifted writer, the nine stories gathered in Dog Run Moon are universally transporting and resonant.
Set mostly in Montana and Wyoming, near the borders of Yellowstone National Park, this revelatory collection combines unforgettable insight into the fierce beauty of the West with a powerful understanding of human beings. Tender, frequently hilarious, and always electrifying, Dog Run Moon announces the arrival of a bold new talent writing deep in the American grain.
256 pages, Paperback
First published February 9, 2016
87 people are currently reading
2132 people want to read
About the author
Callan Wink
7 books304 followersCallan Wink is the author of the novels Beartooth and August and the story collection Dog Run Moon. He has been awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Arts and Stanford University, where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow. His stories and essays appear widely, including in The New Yorker, Granta, Playboy, Men’s Journal and The Best American Short Stories Anthology. He works as a fly fishing guide on the Yellowstone River in Montana.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 141 reviews
February 18, 2016
3 1/2 stars. The experience of reading the short story collection Dog Run Moon by Callan Wink got off to a rough start. I really didn't enjoy the first title story -- I don't think I got it and I didn't find the set up or characters interesting. But I'm glad I stuck it out because some of Wink's stories really knocked my socks off. The stories are set primarily in contemporary Montana. Wink is a very good writer -- with stark straightforward prose he evokes characters and place very powerfully. There is no particular unifying theme between the stories, other than people trying to live their lives and make sense of their circumstances. A few stand out stories: Runoff about a 43 year old single mother who tries to forge a new relationship with a 25 year old after her husband goes off to jail, Off the Track about a 16 year old boy who dwells on his grandfather and family after being sent to a detention centre for a couple of years, and the final novella In Hindsight about Lauren who reflects back on what led her to live on a ranch with an odd assortment of animals next to her angry stepson's property. The strength of these stories is not the plot, but the characters -- they are offbeat, but recognizable and human -- not cartoonish. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.
April 13, 2016
In the opening story of this near perfect and masterful collection, Sid, a blue-collared idealist, is running naked across “the sharp sandstone rimrock” in the middle of the night. He’s just stolen a dog and is furiously running from his pursuers, Montana Bob (the dog’s owner) and his accountant, Charlie Chaplin. During a break in the pursuit, the narrative jumps back, revealing Sid’s motivation for taking the dog and why he’s being chased.
In many ways, this first sequence, a rocket launch of a debut, presages the raw, unadulterated, and truly brilliant writing that follows in Dog Run Moon. Callan Wink has been compared to Richard Ford (I see it in the setting), Annie Proulx (again, setting) and Kent Haruf, but I found the prose and narrative structure of these stories to be of an imitable voice. Aside from the coffee, booze, and hard men and women (a feature of Raymond Carver’s), I had a hard time definitively pointing to a source of inspiration. This is the work of a singular artist.
I do think Wink subscribes to the adage, “write what you know.” He’s a full-time fly fishing instructor in Montana, which serves as the setting and backdrop for most of these. But, for someone so young (he looks like he should be carded in his bio pic), he sure seems to get what it means to survive the recklessness of youth and grow into the maturity of regret.
I came across Wink a few years ago after reading his first published short story, “Breatharians,” in The New Yorker. It’s a brutal story about a boy instructed by his father to destroy litters of cats living in the family barn. He fulfills the task, but not out of a psychopathic rage associated with kids that harm animals. He does it out of a sense of duty. A duty he hopes will bring his separated parents back together. Ok, perhaps he is psychopathic, but Wink manages to create empathy for even him and the future him.
After reading “Breatharians”, I scoured the internet looking for a collection or other published works. I believe it’s rare for a publication like The New Yorker to publish stories by writers without any published work or at least something in the works. I could tell in his writing there was a record storm of ideas churning, and I wanted to be one of the first to watch it hit shore.
For two years, I checked back, but never found any news about Wink or a published book. Finally, last fall, news of Dog Run Moon hit.
I was fortunate enough to get a copy a week before it hit the shelves, and I devoured it in days. Exceeding my expectations, Dog Run Moon is the beginning of what I think will be momentous literary career. It’s strange to think of the months and years I waited for this book, and now that I’ve read it, to not feel satiated. It’s been read, and now I want another.
Luckily, I’m not the only one. I think The New York Times literary critic, Dwight Gardner, knows what I’m talking about:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/boo....
Not bad for a first cast.
In many ways, this first sequence, a rocket launch of a debut, presages the raw, unadulterated, and truly brilliant writing that follows in Dog Run Moon. Callan Wink has been compared to Richard Ford (I see it in the setting), Annie Proulx (again, setting) and Kent Haruf, but I found the prose and narrative structure of these stories to be of an imitable voice. Aside from the coffee, booze, and hard men and women (a feature of Raymond Carver’s), I had a hard time definitively pointing to a source of inspiration. This is the work of a singular artist.
I do think Wink subscribes to the adage, “write what you know.” He’s a full-time fly fishing instructor in Montana, which serves as the setting and backdrop for most of these. But, for someone so young (he looks like he should be carded in his bio pic), he sure seems to get what it means to survive the recklessness of youth and grow into the maturity of regret.
I came across Wink a few years ago after reading his first published short story, “Breatharians,” in The New Yorker. It’s a brutal story about a boy instructed by his father to destroy litters of cats living in the family barn. He fulfills the task, but not out of a psychopathic rage associated with kids that harm animals. He does it out of a sense of duty. A duty he hopes will bring his separated parents back together. Ok, perhaps he is psychopathic, but Wink manages to create empathy for even him and the future him.
After reading “Breatharians”, I scoured the internet looking for a collection or other published works. I believe it’s rare for a publication like The New Yorker to publish stories by writers without any published work or at least something in the works. I could tell in his writing there was a record storm of ideas churning, and I wanted to be one of the first to watch it hit shore.
For two years, I checked back, but never found any news about Wink or a published book. Finally, last fall, news of Dog Run Moon hit.
I was fortunate enough to get a copy a week before it hit the shelves, and I devoured it in days. Exceeding my expectations, Dog Run Moon is the beginning of what I think will be momentous literary career. It’s strange to think of the months and years I waited for this book, and now that I’ve read it, to not feel satiated. It’s been read, and now I want another.
Luckily, I’m not the only one. I think The New York Times literary critic, Dwight Gardner, knows what I’m talking about:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/boo....
Not bad for a first cast.
July 28, 2016
How is it that someone barely into his thirties can write stories that are so infused with wisdom, sensitivity, and grace? Each and every story in this collection is a winner. It’s hard for me to identify which one I love the best.
The first eponymous story starts like this: “Sid was a nude sleeper. Had been ever since he was a little kid. To him, wearing clothes to bed seemed strangely redundant, like wearing underwear inside your underwear or something.” Within the course of this story, Sid steals a chained dog – liberated, is how he views it – and the story is so masterfully done that I can see it anthologized for its sheer power.
Other stories are equally memorable. In “One More Last Stand”, a reenactor of Little Bighorn has a “same time next year” affair with a tribal woman who plays his killer; from her bed, he comforts his wife back home who is facing breast cancer. In Breatharians, perhaps the most haunting of the stories, a young boy learns about the extent of cruelty from his father. In Runoff, a young man is tested in his romantic relationship with an older woman, leaving a legacy behind for his father to cope with. And in the longest and last story, In Hindsight, the author tracks the life of a veterinary assistant whose trajectory from youth to old age is mirrored, somewhat, by the animals within it.
These are stories that surprise (“He’d stare at the wild striations of the sandstone canyon walls and invent lives for the four men he’d killed”), amaze, astound, and sometimes mystify. There are characters that step out of the pages, set mostly in Montana and Wyoming, with situations that resonate after the last paragraph.
The publicists, predictably, compare the author to writers as diverse as Kent Haruf, Annie Proulx, and Richard Ford. Callan Wink is certainly as promising a talent as the three aforementioned writers, but he has a voice all his own.
The first eponymous story starts like this: “Sid was a nude sleeper. Had been ever since he was a little kid. To him, wearing clothes to bed seemed strangely redundant, like wearing underwear inside your underwear or something.” Within the course of this story, Sid steals a chained dog – liberated, is how he views it – and the story is so masterfully done that I can see it anthologized for its sheer power.
Other stories are equally memorable. In “One More Last Stand”, a reenactor of Little Bighorn has a “same time next year” affair with a tribal woman who plays his killer; from her bed, he comforts his wife back home who is facing breast cancer. In Breatharians, perhaps the most haunting of the stories, a young boy learns about the extent of cruelty from his father. In Runoff, a young man is tested in his romantic relationship with an older woman, leaving a legacy behind for his father to cope with. And in the longest and last story, In Hindsight, the author tracks the life of a veterinary assistant whose trajectory from youth to old age is mirrored, somewhat, by the animals within it.
These are stories that surprise (“He’d stare at the wild striations of the sandstone canyon walls and invent lives for the four men he’d killed”), amaze, astound, and sometimes mystify. There are characters that step out of the pages, set mostly in Montana and Wyoming, with situations that resonate after the last paragraph.
The publicists, predictably, compare the author to writers as diverse as Kent Haruf, Annie Proulx, and Richard Ford. Callan Wink is certainly as promising a talent as the three aforementioned writers, but he has a voice all his own.
Read
March 6, 2025Mostly set in Montana or other western locales, these stories feature a neat array of young(-ish) male protagonists with various problems, ambitions, worries, and dreams. Unflinching at times (like the story of a little kid whose father hires him to kill cats overrunning his barn and smelling up the hay with piss), they may not please every reader, but reality is what reality is and these things happen. Of course, some unevenness, but interesting and overall, writing that's up to the task. No, not James Joyce task, but a task that involves good plotting and sound characterization through dialogue and action. I liked it enough to think about his new novel, Beartooth.
February 27, 2016
Relationship Issues and Edgy Humor in Big Sky Country
I enjoyed this debut collection quite a lot. Most of these stories are memorable and I know I’ll never forget at least two or three.
I especially enjoyed the more humorous ones, which, for me, include not only the title story and “One More Last Stand” but also “Breatharians”. Some readers probably won’t find “Breatharians” funny at all and may even find it offensive. In it, stray cats are multiplying like rabbits and running amok in a family’s barn and the young son is given monetary rewards for every cat he kills. And that’s only the tip of it. Talk about a dysfunctional family! This way over-the-top story is weird and dark and I weird-laughed through my clenched teeth all the way through it.
While I truly enjoyed this collection, I’m not so sure it completely deserves the high praises being given it by the established writers who’ve provided review blurbs for the jacket (Ron Rash, Jim Harrison and Thomas McGuane, among others). I do think Wink shows real strength in his prose. It’s spare and direct and it gave me a strong sense of Big Sky country throughout. But, I wasn’t quite as impressed with his skills at character differentiation. The majority of these stories felt like they featured the same protagonist: a generation Y male with relationship issues, a throwaway job, and a bleak outlook on life. Even the female protagonist in the last story felt like she had that same “voice”. I would have liked more differences in flavor there, but that’s my only complaint and it’s a fairly minor one.
I’ll definitely read more Wink in the future, especially when he finishes the novel that he’s currently writing (so I hear).
My sincere apologies to Netgalley and Random House for waiting 3 weeks before posting a review. I had a bad case of reviewer’s block.
4 Stars.
March 31, 2016
Wink’s debut story collection, set mostly under Montana’s open skies, stars a motley cast of aimless young men, ranchers, Native Americans, and animals live and dead. He plays around with Western stereotypes in intriguing ways. A few of the tales are a bit less compelling, and I would have preferred more variety in the narration (8 of 9 are in the third person), but the stand-outs more than make up for it. My two favorites were “Runoff” (there’s a double meaning to the title) and “Exotics,” in which all the characters are lured by the life they don’t currently have. [Animal lovers may well struggle with “Breatharians,” in which twelve-year-old August earns a dollar from his father for every barn cat he kills.]
Non-subscribers can read an excerpt of my review at BookBrowse.
Non-subscribers can read an excerpt of my review at BookBrowse.
August 6, 2016
4.5 stars
A few months ago, I heard Callan Wink talking on BBC Radio Four’s, Open Book program about how painful the writing process is for him, how some writers love to sit down and immerse themselves in the work, but he tends to do everything to avoid writing. Interesting then, that these nine stories are so accomplished and quietly confident, with the opening, title story starting as though it’s the beginning of a novel, and drawing you in from the first few lines.
There are recurrent themes throughout the stories, often centering on complicated relationships between father and son and husband and wife; there is romance, affairs, tragedy, beer and violence and surrounding all this, scenes of the Montana countryside summed up in spot on lines;
‘It was a full moon, fat as a tick stuck to midnight like a flank.’
His characters too, are outlined in succinct sentences like the Texan who has fashioned his jeans around a full leg cast;
‘..some folks with a leg cast in Texas in late June probably just wore shorts. This man was obviously cut from a more rugged cloth.’
But although these portraits are miniature, with a dark humor emerging occasionally, the breadth of emotion in the writing is not and the unanswered questions typical of short stories only add to their poignancy. I was drawn into each and every story with probably ‘Sundance’ and ‘Breatharian’ being favorites, although the final story, ‘In Hindsight’ which is almost a novella, left me thirsty for the eventual novel I hope Callan Wink will write.
A few months ago, I heard Callan Wink talking on BBC Radio Four’s, Open Book program about how painful the writing process is for him, how some writers love to sit down and immerse themselves in the work, but he tends to do everything to avoid writing. Interesting then, that these nine stories are so accomplished and quietly confident, with the opening, title story starting as though it’s the beginning of a novel, and drawing you in from the first few lines.
There are recurrent themes throughout the stories, often centering on complicated relationships between father and son and husband and wife; there is romance, affairs, tragedy, beer and violence and surrounding all this, scenes of the Montana countryside summed up in spot on lines;
‘It was a full moon, fat as a tick stuck to midnight like a flank.’
His characters too, are outlined in succinct sentences like the Texan who has fashioned his jeans around a full leg cast;
‘..some folks with a leg cast in Texas in late June probably just wore shorts. This man was obviously cut from a more rugged cloth.’
But although these portraits are miniature, with a dark humor emerging occasionally, the breadth of emotion in the writing is not and the unanswered questions typical of short stories only add to their poignancy. I was drawn into each and every story with probably ‘Sundance’ and ‘Breatharian’ being favorites, although the final story, ‘In Hindsight’ which is almost a novella, left me thirsty for the eventual novel I hope Callan Wink will write.
August 20, 2016
"Clearly it was going to be a long night, the mind chasing the heart in circles around the moon."
It's easy to forget just what makes short story writing so powerful and, dare I say it, delicious. It's that the characters and their actions, tied in a tidy bundle of action and insight, never exist long enough to disappoint. Particularly not when in the deft hands of someone like Callan Wink.
Wink, a relative newcomer to the scene, has made an impressive debut already, with his stories appearing in venues such as "The New Yorker." This book only confirms that well placed trust in his skill. The collection of short stories here are tied together by their Western landscape and unusual life circumstances.
The characters that populate Dog Run Moon are as quirky as the book's title might imply. The book's cover is no more forthcoming about what may lie ahead for a reader. No, the only way to truly experience this magic is to have faith and dip in. What you'll find in the writing are stories of surprising depth and earnestness, although while you're reading it will feel like eating a box of candy, so light, sweet, and good are they.
The characters and their stories linger, even if most of their circumstances seem unlike anything you might come into contact with in your own daily life. They resonate. They exemplify. They linger long after the book has been finished and put back on the shelf. What more can you ask from an author? This book succeeds in every way possible.
Thanks to Dial Press and Good Reads for this sharing oh-so-lovely read.
February 18, 2016
Callan Wink is the talented love child of Jim Harrison and Andre Dubus. His short stories are nothing short of amazing. Haunting, funny, engrossing and melodic these stories run the gamut of emotions. Yet rarely does Wink lose control of either the characters or the story. My favorite, "Runoff" is a perfect example.
Technically, 4.5 stars do to one weak entry. Still, I highly recommend this especially for fans of the above-mentioned authors and Wells Tower; Raymond Carver (although Wink's men tend to have more hope than Carver's); and Josh Weil.
Technically, 4.5 stars do to one weak entry. Still, I highly recommend this especially for fans of the above-mentioned authors and Wells Tower; Raymond Carver (although Wink's men tend to have more hope than Carver's); and Josh Weil.
January 31, 2016
Even if you don’t typically read short stories, I strongly recommend Callan Wink’s debut collection, “Dog Run Moon.” The stories and a novella, some of which have previously been published in The New Yorker and Granta, are set primarily in Montana & Wyoming. I’m a life-long resident of the West, and it was clear that Mr. Wink has a real understanding of and intimacy with Western life, and how the wide open spaces and ideals of freedom and individualism inform and shape the lives of his characters. They often find themselves perplexed about the state of their lives and confounded about what direction to take. In the outstanding novella “In Hindsight”, Lauren, the main character realizes that “It was strange to think about, but the young and the old seem to be uniquely positioned to take advantage of the opportunities that life affords. It’s that middle time that’s a bitch. That time when you first realize without a doubt you can’t do everything you wanted to do, or be everything you wanted to be, but you still cling to the hope that if you just make the right choices, it will all work out in the end. Of course, as a result, you are paralyzed by indecision. “ There are regrets, but there are also moments of grace, hard won wisdom, and possibility. This is a stunning debut, and I find the characters living on in my thoughts weeks after I finished the book.
Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.
Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.
January 8, 2021
WOW! So much sensitivity and wisdom in these stories. The collection left me quite speechless, and I know it’s going to be a longtime favorite. There is such a sense of place infused throughout, and it discusses places and lives so different from my own. The collection feels quite masculine, but not in a bad way at all. I will read anything Wink writes! Stunning. I read a library copy, but I want to purchase my own.
August 27, 2020
So I am approximately the same age as Callan Wink, and as I am not perfect, I can be prone to envy those of a similar age who have accomplishments that I can’t quite match. I am also skeptical of “literary fiction” in particular and short story collections in general, as they can sometimes be boring works that sometimes win awards.
Point being, I was predisposed to not like Dog Run Moon. But here's the thing, all of these short stories are quite good, which is big of me to admit. They manage to be compelling and “serious” without being pretentious and boring, which is quite a feat for a work of literary fiction.
Point being, I was predisposed to not like Dog Run Moon. But here's the thing, all of these short stories are quite good, which is big of me to admit. They manage to be compelling and “serious” without being pretentious and boring, which is quite a feat for a work of literary fiction.
October 6, 2016
“It was a full moon, fat as a tick stuck to midnight's flank. The coyotes worshiped it faithfully.”
“There were cats in the barn. Litters begetting litters-some thin and misshapen with the afflictions of blood too many times mixed.”
Steeped in the modern American west, these stories begin with a young man running naked in the desert at night. He is on the run for his life for stealing an abused dog. The second story features a Custer look-a-like, who reenacts Custer's Last Stand, once a year. He is also having an affair with a Native American woman, who slays him on the pretend battlefield, during each show. The rest of the collection unfolds in a similar manner, with most of them taking place in Montana and Wyoming. Well-drawn characters facing a variety of trials and predicaments, against this rugged, western backdrop. There is beauty and humor here, perfectly balanced with nuanced prose. It is an impressive debut and I look forward to seeing what this young writer does next.
“There were cats in the barn. Litters begetting litters-some thin and misshapen with the afflictions of blood too many times mixed.”
Steeped in the modern American west, these stories begin with a young man running naked in the desert at night. He is on the run for his life for stealing an abused dog. The second story features a Custer look-a-like, who reenacts Custer's Last Stand, once a year. He is also having an affair with a Native American woman, who slays him on the pretend battlefield, during each show. The rest of the collection unfolds in a similar manner, with most of them taking place in Montana and Wyoming. Well-drawn characters facing a variety of trials and predicaments, against this rugged, western backdrop. There is beauty and humor here, perfectly balanced with nuanced prose. It is an impressive debut and I look forward to seeing what this young writer does next.
October 10, 2017
"Terry found that if he tilted his head back, he could look up into a fathomless universe of blackness, a starless sky so immense that it seemed to pull at his eyes. It was like his pupils were made of small pieces of this same dark matter-broken obsidian shards of it-that he'd been carrying around with him his whole life as if they were his own, only to find out they were borrowed, and that now their true owner wanted them back."
June 21, 2016
Easily one of the best collections of short stories I've dived into this year and a very impressive debut. Wink's Dog Run Moon brings a fierce freshness to the fore with simplistic prose and relatable, well-wrought characters. While some stories shine more than others, Wink's talent feels fluidly present throughout.
February 15, 2017
The heartache of Montana’s solitude
Two new fiction works from Big Sky Country crave human connectivity.
http://www.hcn.org/issues/49.1/the-he...
Fans of short fiction set in the West hit the jackpot this year with the publication of two significant collections by Montana writers. For A Little While spans Rick Bass's distinguished career. Dog Run Moon is the first book by Callan Wink, a young writer with an easy grace, good humor, and knack for striking imagery that prove his work merits its cover blurbs by Jim Harrison and Thomas McGuane.
Author and activist Rick Bass regularly writes on behalf of environmental causes, especially to benefit the Yaak Valley, the remote, forested area in northwest Montana where he lived from 1987 to 2011. (He now lives in Missoula.) Nature, whether degraded or pristine, is an integral part of his fiction, from a dog trainer's enchanted journey under the frozen surface of a lake in "The Hermit's Story," to the misshapen creatures teenagers discover in a poisoned Houston river in "Pagans."
Wink, too, shows the landscape as key to the psychology of his characters and as a force in shaping their lives. Wink, a Michigan native, lives in Livingston, Montana and works as a fly fishing guide on the Yellowstone River.
In Wink's title story, set in Utah, a young man named Sid ruminates about his ex-girlfriend, "a small woman, pale, so much so that the desert hurt her in ways that Sid would never fully understand."
Bass's characters too, often have difficulty making love endure. Their geographic isolation mirrors their own interpersonal reserve. In Bass's gorgeous "Fires," the narrator confesses, "Whenever one does move in with me, it feels as if I've tricked her."
Both Wink and Bass's collections include novellas about an older woman living alone in a remote area of Montana who is drawn out of her shell through connection with a child. In Wink's "Hindsight," Lauren maintains a standoff with the resentful son of her deceased husband until a girl turns up at his trailer and she begins to cook for them. In Bass's novella, "The Lives of Rocks," one of his most moving and beautiful stories, Jyl is recovering from cancer treatment at her cabin in the forest, and finds she has little energy to do anything except whittle boats and set them afloat for the neighbor children to find, "seeking partly to provide entertainment and even a touch of magic for the hardened lives of the Workman children living downstream from her—and seeking also some contact with the outside world."
Two children befriend Jyl and she eagerly anticipates their visits. We know from other stories that Jyl grew up in this forest and has often been content to live alone in it, but her newfound vulnerability makes her crave human connection. Both novellas suggest solitude provides too much time to ruminate on past mistakes, and it's healthier to engage in the world and especially with children, who dwell mostly in the present.
Many of the characters in Wink's collection are young men trying to comprehend what it means to commit to something: a woman, a job, or a way of life. While some of the characters in Bass's earlier stories evince the same struggles, most of them have committed—they've thrown themselves into marriages, jobs, lifestyles, and raising children, and Bass probes the bittersweet ache of the road not taken that this generates.
There is an additional layer of awareness to Bass's stories compared to Wink's, a sense of time's swift passing, the string of consequences that domino out from one's actions, and the ephemerality of love, health, contentment, and untarnished nature. This heightens the intensity of the characters' emotions and the reader's experience of the stories. It's right there in the title: For A Little While, which seems to apply to people's time on earth and their momentary idylls and sorrows. There is also a sense of greater stakes—Bass's stories aren’t just about the particular character, but about the impact that character's decisions will have on the following generations, including on children and the environment. As one character muses about the disappearance of spotted leopard frogs, "What other bright phenomena will vanish in our lifetimes, becoming one day merely memory and story, tale and legacy, and then fragments of story and legacy, and then nothing, only wind?"
Some of Wink's stories begin to offer hints of that seasoned perspective, but it's unfair to judge Wink against Bass on this score. Bass is a master, and Wink has written a crackerjack first collection, every bit as fine as Rick Bass's first, 1989's The Watch. Dog Run Moon promises that Wink's unfolding as an artist might be just as riveting for fans of Western fiction as Bass's has been.
Two new fiction works from Big Sky Country crave human connectivity.
http://www.hcn.org/issues/49.1/the-he...
Fans of short fiction set in the West hit the jackpot this year with the publication of two significant collections by Montana writers. For A Little While spans Rick Bass's distinguished career. Dog Run Moon is the first book by Callan Wink, a young writer with an easy grace, good humor, and knack for striking imagery that prove his work merits its cover blurbs by Jim Harrison and Thomas McGuane.
Author and activist Rick Bass regularly writes on behalf of environmental causes, especially to benefit the Yaak Valley, the remote, forested area in northwest Montana where he lived from 1987 to 2011. (He now lives in Missoula.) Nature, whether degraded or pristine, is an integral part of his fiction, from a dog trainer's enchanted journey under the frozen surface of a lake in "The Hermit's Story," to the misshapen creatures teenagers discover in a poisoned Houston river in "Pagans."
Wink, too, shows the landscape as key to the psychology of his characters and as a force in shaping their lives. Wink, a Michigan native, lives in Livingston, Montana and works as a fly fishing guide on the Yellowstone River.
In Wink's title story, set in Utah, a young man named Sid ruminates about his ex-girlfriend, "a small woman, pale, so much so that the desert hurt her in ways that Sid would never fully understand."
Bass's characters too, often have difficulty making love endure. Their geographic isolation mirrors their own interpersonal reserve. In Bass's gorgeous "Fires," the narrator confesses, "Whenever one does move in with me, it feels as if I've tricked her."
Both Wink and Bass's collections include novellas about an older woman living alone in a remote area of Montana who is drawn out of her shell through connection with a child. In Wink's "Hindsight," Lauren maintains a standoff with the resentful son of her deceased husband until a girl turns up at his trailer and she begins to cook for them. In Bass's novella, "The Lives of Rocks," one of his most moving and beautiful stories, Jyl is recovering from cancer treatment at her cabin in the forest, and finds she has little energy to do anything except whittle boats and set them afloat for the neighbor children to find, "seeking partly to provide entertainment and even a touch of magic for the hardened lives of the Workman children living downstream from her—and seeking also some contact with the outside world."
Two children befriend Jyl and she eagerly anticipates their visits. We know from other stories that Jyl grew up in this forest and has often been content to live alone in it, but her newfound vulnerability makes her crave human connection. Both novellas suggest solitude provides too much time to ruminate on past mistakes, and it's healthier to engage in the world and especially with children, who dwell mostly in the present.
Many of the characters in Wink's collection are young men trying to comprehend what it means to commit to something: a woman, a job, or a way of life. While some of the characters in Bass's earlier stories evince the same struggles, most of them have committed—they've thrown themselves into marriages, jobs, lifestyles, and raising children, and Bass probes the bittersweet ache of the road not taken that this generates.
There is an additional layer of awareness to Bass's stories compared to Wink's, a sense of time's swift passing, the string of consequences that domino out from one's actions, and the ephemerality of love, health, contentment, and untarnished nature. This heightens the intensity of the characters' emotions and the reader's experience of the stories. It's right there in the title: For A Little While, which seems to apply to people's time on earth and their momentary idylls and sorrows. There is also a sense of greater stakes—Bass's stories aren’t just about the particular character, but about the impact that character's decisions will have on the following generations, including on children and the environment. As one character muses about the disappearance of spotted leopard frogs, "What other bright phenomena will vanish in our lifetimes, becoming one day merely memory and story, tale and legacy, and then fragments of story and legacy, and then nothing, only wind?"
Some of Wink's stories begin to offer hints of that seasoned perspective, but it's unfair to judge Wink against Bass on this score. Bass is a master, and Wink has written a crackerjack first collection, every bit as fine as Rick Bass's first, 1989's The Watch. Dog Run Moon promises that Wink's unfolding as an artist might be just as riveting for fans of Western fiction as Bass's has been.
September 6, 2017
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE IT
Sortie le 20 septembre .... je meurs d'envie de vous en parler !
Sortie le 20 septembre .... je meurs d'envie de vous en parler !
January 16, 2025
I read the short stories after the author’s novel and paradoxically I found the stories to have more depth, they seemed more poignant. He is a fantastic writer and look forward to his next.
February 14, 2016
A set of beautifully written stories about lonely men and women trying to make the most out of life. The stories take place mostly in Montana with a few visits to Michigan. Some stories are sad, others simply end causing you to look up and think about things.
A couple of wonderful lines, from among many...
“She’d always thought that petting a dog was the greatest activity in the world a person could engage in while thinking about other things.”
"he went to a Hasidic dance in Crown Heights in New York, which, from what I gather, is like an Indian reservation but for Orthodox Jews."
Beautiful!
A couple of wonderful lines, from among many...
“She’d always thought that petting a dog was the greatest activity in the world a person could engage in while thinking about other things.”
"he went to a Hasidic dance in Crown Heights in New York, which, from what I gather, is like an Indian reservation but for Orthodox Jews."
Beautiful!
May 5, 2025
“You could say that about anything. Everything in your life—either you bury it or it buries you. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get attached.”
Good stuff in here about fathers and sons.
Good stuff in here about fathers and sons.
February 28, 2017
I enjoyed this debut collection of short stories by Callan Wink who clearly loves the modern West, especially Montana, the state where he now lives, guides and writes. I especially his avoiding the pitfall of many debut writers of writing about essentially the same characters in slightly different situations, Wink's characters are diverse in age, education, and station in life facing different challenges in the west. Some favorites:
"Runoff" features a college drop out living with his widowed dad who is disappointed in his son's aimless life. But the son gets a job on an ambulance crew, starts studying to be an EMT and meets an older woman with children, all of which give purpose and potential to his life.
In "One More Stand" a man who earned his phd in Custer studies travels to Montana each year to play the part of Custer in a reenactment of Custer's last stand. This tradition includes an affair with a local Crow who is also part of the reenactment. They are both married and their strongly sexual relationship plays in between and against the reenactments that highlight the cultural differences.
"Sundance" starts off with the narrator saying he had killed four men. As the story progresses, it recounts the events, the narrator is a construction foreman who has gotten behind on finishing a vacation home for a Silicon valley millionaire. He wants his crew to work on Thanksgiving to finish a pillar before the family visits, when his crew says no he makes not so subtle references to the authorities finding out about their immigration statuses. The crew of course works on Thanksgiving day even while the foreman takes a break to eat dinner at a friend's home. When the foreman returns he discovers that the workers have died from carbon monoxide poisoning. The rest of the story deals with the reactions from the millionaire's wife who does not want her to husband to know of the deaths as it would upset him, to the friend's spiritual observations, to the narrator's increasing detachment from life.
"Off the Track" tells of a teenager who is waiting to report to a state detention facility as a result of a manslaughter conviction. The family members have different reactions, the teen's granpa takes him fishing with oblique references about learning from life and getting through adversity. The story continues with his stay in the juvenile prison until his release and the different homecomings he receives.
My favorite was "In Hindsight." The story spans years of Lauren's life from when she inherited half a section of land from her husband with her step son bitterly accepting only his half of the section. In time, he shoots one of her steers and destroys her investment of newly planted trees. As she refused to be chased away she recounts her prior life, the disappointments ,promises and missed opportunities including her one fulfilling romance. When Lauren refuses to leave Montana to follow her lover she has last minute regrets telling her lover that they would stay in touch, that Lauren would visit only to hear "That's not how it works with me," she said "I don't do half ways"
The one constant in Lauren's life was her love of mountains and her favorite climb. At age 73 after showing compassion to her estranged step son she decides t0 do it one more time but with this qualification "She'd done this hike many times and she didn't allow herself to frame this one in terms of finality. She wanted to enjoy it for what it was, not some sad, elegiac trek up the mountains of her own mortality." That sentence summed up so much of the compelling character of an ultimate Montana woman, Lauren
"Runoff" features a college drop out living with his widowed dad who is disappointed in his son's aimless life. But the son gets a job on an ambulance crew, starts studying to be an EMT and meets an older woman with children, all of which give purpose and potential to his life.
In "One More Stand" a man who earned his phd in Custer studies travels to Montana each year to play the part of Custer in a reenactment of Custer's last stand. This tradition includes an affair with a local Crow who is also part of the reenactment. They are both married and their strongly sexual relationship plays in between and against the reenactments that highlight the cultural differences.
"Sundance" starts off with the narrator saying he had killed four men. As the story progresses, it recounts the events, the narrator is a construction foreman who has gotten behind on finishing a vacation home for a Silicon valley millionaire. He wants his crew to work on Thanksgiving to finish a pillar before the family visits, when his crew says no he makes not so subtle references to the authorities finding out about their immigration statuses. The crew of course works on Thanksgiving day even while the foreman takes a break to eat dinner at a friend's home. When the foreman returns he discovers that the workers have died from carbon monoxide poisoning. The rest of the story deals with the reactions from the millionaire's wife who does not want her to husband to know of the deaths as it would upset him, to the friend's spiritual observations, to the narrator's increasing detachment from life.
"Off the Track" tells of a teenager who is waiting to report to a state detention facility as a result of a manslaughter conviction. The family members have different reactions, the teen's granpa takes him fishing with oblique references about learning from life and getting through adversity. The story continues with his stay in the juvenile prison until his release and the different homecomings he receives.
My favorite was "In Hindsight." The story spans years of Lauren's life from when she inherited half a section of land from her husband with her step son bitterly accepting only his half of the section. In time, he shoots one of her steers and destroys her investment of newly planted trees. As she refused to be chased away she recounts her prior life, the disappointments ,promises and missed opportunities including her one fulfilling romance. When Lauren refuses to leave Montana to follow her lover she has last minute regrets telling her lover that they would stay in touch, that Lauren would visit only to hear "That's not how it works with me," she said "I don't do half ways"
The one constant in Lauren's life was her love of mountains and her favorite climb. At age 73 after showing compassion to her estranged step son she decides t0 do it one more time but with this qualification "She'd done this hike many times and she didn't allow herself to frame this one in terms of finality. She wanted to enjoy it for what it was, not some sad, elegiac trek up the mountains of her own mortality." That sentence summed up so much of the compelling character of an ultimate Montana woman, Lauren
April 9, 2017
I couldn’t always work out how much I liked these. They felt quite conventional – third person narrative voice, an American landscape of cheap motels and beat-up motor homes. But they were also very readable at times, and though some felt too long to be short stories, or at least seemed to cover too much ground, the novella at the end was really good.
February 10, 2016
Thank You to Random House and The Dial Press for providing me with an advanced copy of Callan Wink's Dog Run Moon, in exchange for an honest review.
PLOT- Callan Wink's short story collection, Dog Run Moon, is filled with memorable characters caught in unexpected situations. Wink has a flair for infusing his tales with quirky scenarios and punishing moral consequences.
LIKE- I didn't recognize Callan Wink's name when I began Dog Run Moon, but I was happy to encounter his story, Breatharians, which I had read in a writing class last year. Breatharians made a huge impression on me when I read it originally, and it was a pleasure to read it a second time. Breatharians is about a young boy living on a farm who is caught in the middle of his parents. His parents have split, but they live on the same property, in two different houses. His father has remarried a much younger woman, and his mother is mentally ill, living off of air rather than food, as a Breatharian. As if this wasn't strange enough, Wink has added the element of having the boy tasked with culling the barn cat population, chopping their tails off, and tacking the tails to a board. This craziness is a reoccurring element in the collection. It had me hooked.
Often story collections are uneven, with some stories shining above others. I didn't notice this with Dog Run Moon. It seemed that every story was as compelling as the last. Another stand-out was One More Last Stand, where a Civil War reenactor, shows up for a yearly festival held on a Native American reservation. For years, he has been having an affair with one of the women from the reservation, who also participates in the reenactment. This year, he comes bearing the secret that his wife has breast cancer, making it impossible to have his fantasy weekend.
Wink's characters are struggling to make sense of the world around them. They have secrets and carry heavy burdens. Although they often make mistakes and missteps, there is a hopefulness in his writing.
DISLIKE- Nothing, Dog Run Moon is a solid collection from a marvelous storyteller.
RECOMMEND- Yes! If you're a fan of the short story genre, Callan Wink is an author that you need to check out. Dog Run Moon is a stellar debut.
Like my review? Check out my blog!
PLOT- Callan Wink's short story collection, Dog Run Moon, is filled with memorable characters caught in unexpected situations. Wink has a flair for infusing his tales with quirky scenarios and punishing moral consequences.
LIKE- I didn't recognize Callan Wink's name when I began Dog Run Moon, but I was happy to encounter his story, Breatharians, which I had read in a writing class last year. Breatharians made a huge impression on me when I read it originally, and it was a pleasure to read it a second time. Breatharians is about a young boy living on a farm who is caught in the middle of his parents. His parents have split, but they live on the same property, in two different houses. His father has remarried a much younger woman, and his mother is mentally ill, living off of air rather than food, as a Breatharian. As if this wasn't strange enough, Wink has added the element of having the boy tasked with culling the barn cat population, chopping their tails off, and tacking the tails to a board. This craziness is a reoccurring element in the collection. It had me hooked.
Often story collections are uneven, with some stories shining above others. I didn't notice this with Dog Run Moon. It seemed that every story was as compelling as the last. Another stand-out was One More Last Stand, where a Civil War reenactor, shows up for a yearly festival held on a Native American reservation. For years, he has been having an affair with one of the women from the reservation, who also participates in the reenactment. This year, he comes bearing the secret that his wife has breast cancer, making it impossible to have his fantasy weekend.
Wink's characters are struggling to make sense of the world around them. They have secrets and carry heavy burdens. Although they often make mistakes and missteps, there is a hopefulness in his writing.
DISLIKE- Nothing, Dog Run Moon is a solid collection from a marvelous storyteller.
RECOMMEND- Yes! If you're a fan of the short story genre, Callan Wink is an author that you need to check out. Dog Run Moon is a stellar debut.
Like my review? Check out my blog!
July 5, 2018
An excellent debut for Callan Wink, a young author who moonlights as a fly fishing guide in Montana.
The influence of nature and the sometimes outrageous, often dissatisfied men who inhabit the harsh environment he occupies is almost cinematographic in its precision in this collection of short stories. With great deftness of style, Wink evokes the vast panorama of the West in small touches: "a shattered nightcap of jumbled rock" in DOG RUN MOON, "the wild striations of the sandstone canyon walls" in SUN DANCE....
His characters are outdoor types of men. They live in trailers, work on farms, on building sites - they are lonely: a widower in CROW COUNTRY MOSES, a young man rejected by his partner in DOG RUN MOON, a teenager heartbreakingly spurned by his parents in OFF THE TRACK. He writes about fathers and sons with depth and no concession: «fathers are always the harshest judges » (OFF THE TRACK). In this sensitive exploration of human emotions, Wink endears himself to his reader by managing to introduce a certain levity to his characters' experiences. He revisits the myths of the West with humor in stories like ONE MORE LAST STAND in which an impersonator of General Custer has an affair with a Native American woman in the re-enactment of the battle of the Little Big Horn. Will his night with her be his last stand? Callan Wink’s stories will take you where you don’t expect to be led. Thoroughly enjoyable, highly recommended read.
The influence of nature and the sometimes outrageous, often dissatisfied men who inhabit the harsh environment he occupies is almost cinematographic in its precision in this collection of short stories. With great deftness of style, Wink evokes the vast panorama of the West in small touches: "a shattered nightcap of jumbled rock" in DOG RUN MOON, "the wild striations of the sandstone canyon walls" in SUN DANCE....
His characters are outdoor types of men. They live in trailers, work on farms, on building sites - they are lonely: a widower in CROW COUNTRY MOSES, a young man rejected by his partner in DOG RUN MOON, a teenager heartbreakingly spurned by his parents in OFF THE TRACK. He writes about fathers and sons with depth and no concession: «fathers are always the harshest judges » (OFF THE TRACK). In this sensitive exploration of human emotions, Wink endears himself to his reader by managing to introduce a certain levity to his characters' experiences. He revisits the myths of the West with humor in stories like ONE MORE LAST STAND in which an impersonator of General Custer has an affair with a Native American woman in the re-enactment of the battle of the Little Big Horn. Will his night with her be his last stand? Callan Wink’s stories will take you where you don’t expect to be led. Thoroughly enjoyable, highly recommended read.
December 30, 2016
The domestic angst of John Cheever and the fluid lyricism of Tobias Wolff meet in the broad empty space of Ivan Doig's American West. To my reading, Callan Wink's debut in American letters has set him in some pretty refined company. There is a wonderful, unforced feeling of isolation in this set of short stories, giving the reader time to sit and stew along with characters drawn from the periphery of our own lives. A young man 'lucky' enough to commit a murder while still a juvenile. A Custer's Last Stand reenactment player with a wandering, wild heart. A woman who calls her two mutts by one name - Elton John. Where did love go wrong? Is there a place for me and my wound among this vast and stark beauty? How to regain what was lost, particularly if I never knew I had it until it was gone? There's only a trace of the "Carver grit", but a healthy slice of the deep heart of Norman Maclean in these too brief, too beautiful by half stories.
A fine writer, and gladly, a very young one. There's a gift in Callan Wink that could be ours to enjoy for a long, long while.
A fine writer, and gladly, a very young one. There's a gift in Callan Wink that could be ours to enjoy for a long, long while.
April 26, 2016
The best collection of short fiction I've read since Jodi Angel's "You Only Get Letters From Jail", and that's saying something. Wink's first collection, too. He is ill-served by the cartoony/goofy graphics on the book's cover, a total misfire that will be an instant turn-off for the sorts of folks who love intense, personal stories of loners, misfits and square pegs (as well as large-hearted people at odds with their surroundings).
Most are set in Wink's home state of Montana, and there's a definite fishing/hunting/farming vibe to much of it. I was continually impressed by the pacing of each story, and how each character unfolded in surprising ways, with nothing overly dramatic and with occasional metaphor that actually worked. A seriously fantastic debut and now an author who I'm going to go out of my way to read from now on.
Most are set in Wink's home state of Montana, and there's a definite fishing/hunting/farming vibe to much of it. I was continually impressed by the pacing of each story, and how each character unfolded in surprising ways, with nothing overly dramatic and with occasional metaphor that actually worked. A seriously fantastic debut and now an author who I'm going to go out of my way to read from now on.
June 20, 2016
[a text exchange]
Me: Did you tell me about Dog Run Moon the short story collection?
BP: Yup!
BP: Not bad, eh?
Me: Holy MOLY
Me: understatement of the year
BP: Nice!
Me: Eight stars out of five
BP: I loved it so much I'm saving the last one bc I don't want it to end.
Me: I'm doing the opposite. The whole thing in one day.
BP: He's the kind of writer I want to read each book as it comes out.
Me: Did you read Fourth of July Creek? They are spiritual cousins.
BP: On my to-read list.
Me: MOVE IT UP
Me: Now leave me alone I am trying to read over here.
[end scene]
Me: Did you tell me about Dog Run Moon the short story collection?
BP: Yup!
BP: Not bad, eh?
Me: Holy MOLY
Me: understatement of the year
BP: Nice!
Me: Eight stars out of five
BP: I loved it so much I'm saving the last one bc I don't want it to end.
Me: I'm doing the opposite. The whole thing in one day.
BP: He's the kind of writer I want to read each book as it comes out.
Me: Did you read Fourth of July Creek? They are spiritual cousins.
BP: On my to-read list.
Me: MOVE IT UP
Me: Now leave me alone I am trying to read over here.
[end scene]
December 10, 2015
I am really looking forward to selling this great book by Livingston, MT writer, Callan Wink. Humorous and entertaining, Dog Run Moon, is sure to be enjoyed by a variety of readers.
December 21, 2019
I forget exactly how I found out about this book. I mean, I know I spotted it on Amazon because it was recommended beneath another book I was looking at, but I can’t remember what that other book was. No matter, I found this book. It intrigued me because it sounded like a book of literary short stories that actually had some balls to them, like Tom Franklin’s stuff. The eponymous story, “Dog Run Moon,” was about a guy who stole a ruffian’s dog and said ruffian hunted him down to get the dog back. The thief, Sid, is naked and literally running from Montana Bob, the dog’s owner, and Charlie Chaplin, Bob’s psychotic-seeming accountant/friend. The story recounts how Sid found the dog and how he took off with it and then how Montana Bob and Charlie Chaplin tried to persuade Sid to give the dog back on a few occasions. At the end of the story, Montana Bob and Charlie Chaplin catch up to Sid, take the dog back and don’t beat Sid up because they pity him. And that’s it. “Runoff” is about a twenty-something named Dale who’s studying to become an EMT and who takes up with a 43-year-old divorcee with two kids named Jeannette. Dale’s dad, Ken, warns him about getting involved with a divorced woman but Dale stays with her anyway. The creek behind Jeanette’s house floods and she asks Dale to help her, and he in turn enlists Ken, who helps sandbag the backyard to prevent flooding. Then a while later Dale is jumped one night by Jeannette’s ex (that’s the implication, anyway) and dies. Ken is pissed at her for a bit but then they see each other in the park one day and he seems to have gotten past it. And that’s it. “One More Last Stand” is about a reenacter named Perry who goes to a reenactment in Crow Agency, Montana, near Little Bighorn, where Custer made his infamous last stand. Perry plays the part of Custer. He apparently goes there every year for the reenactment and to meet up with an old flame named Kat Realbird (fun fact: the Real Bird family actually exists and do indeed help put on a reenactment each year). They drink, fuck, hang out. And Perry usually calls his wife before or after (or sometimes even during) their trysts. His wife, Andy, has breast cancer. Apparently, Kat is fine that Perry is married - to her, it is what it is. Anyway, Perry and Kat have their fling, the reenactment ends, and Perry goes to leave. Only he has an arrow stuck in his tire, which of course has deflated it. (The night before he leaves, a Native American bartender in the local watering hole tells Perry that everybody knows about his and Kat’s affair, and he needs to watch his back because Kat’s husband is the bartender’s cousin - implying the bartender wants and is willing to fuck Perry up.) So he pops the spare on and goes to get the tire fixed. And that’s it. “Breatharians” was about a teenage kid named August who lives on a farm with his parents and a farmhand named Lisa. His mother and father live in different houses - one built by August’s grandfather (on his mother’s side) and one built by August’s father - on the farm. His mother is kind of out of it and his father is banging Lisa. August shuttles between the two parents, feeling sorry for his mom and resentful of his dad. His dad pays him to kill some feral cats in the barn and he ends up poisoning them and killing them all. And that’s it. In “Exotics,” a teacher named James takes a summer job as a ranch hand in Texas. His job is mostly to drive around the ranch in a golf cart, top off feeders with corn, shit like that. He learns that the ranch has many different kinds of exotic animals, such as zebras, and they’re kept there so rich assholes can hunt them. He works there until summer ends and then ostensibly goes back to Montana, where he teaches. And that’s it. “Sun Dance” is about a contractor named Rand who accidentally kills four Mexicans who work for him. Upon Rand’s request, they work on a house on Thanksgiving and accidentally get carbon monoxide poisoning and die. That happens, but Rand moves on to other projects. His friend, Sam, tries to get Rand out of the house and takes him to various Native American events (Sam’s wife is Native American) such as a sweat lodge and a sun dance. Rand feels awkward at these events but goes anyway. By the end, he reluctantly participates in the sun dance. And that’s it. “Off the Track” was about a kid named Terry who went to a strip club as a minor, got into a fight, accidentally killed a guy, and was sent to juvie for two years as a result. While he’s in there, his grandfather, who Terry was very close to, dies, his father finds Jesus, his sister Denise becomes an atheist (which infuriates her parents), and his mother becomes more despondent as her family drifts farther and farther apart. Then Terry is released to find that he’s inherited his grandfather’s house, truck, and other belongings. Denise tries to live with Terry but Terry isn’t having it - it seems he’s inherited a bit of his grandfather’s cruelty (which Terry never experienced but his mom said existed) along with his worldly possessions. In the end, Terry is at the house alone. And that’s it. “Crow Country Moses” is about a guy who goes on a fishing trip with his father in Montana shortly after the guy’s mom dies. (The son is an adult.) It’s pretty nondescript, and then two years later the dad dies and the son goes to Michigan to take care of his father’s affairs. And that’s it. “In Hindsight” covers nearly the entire life of a woman named Lauren. It starts when she’s in her 40s or so, backtracks to her late teens, goes through her 20s and 30s, catches back up to her 40s, and then fast forwards to her early 70s. In that time, she gets married, her husband dies, she dates a lesbian veterinarian, breaks up, lives on a farm, works as a janitor at a school, gets into something of a feud with Jason, her deceased husband’s son, and then makes up with him. And that’s it. This story was different than the others in that it was SUCH a gut punch, which made it so much better than the others. Not that the others were bad, mind you. It’s just that this story was so incredibly poignant and sad and, well, real. I mean, I actually felt Lauren’s loneliness and what it was like to go through all these different stages of life and grow old and change and have a different perspective on things as she aged. What’s weird is that it was so sad but I enjoyed it so much that I didn’t want it to end. With the exception of “In Hindsight” (which very much stood out as its own thing), I actually liked the same things about all these stories - the way Wink described the landscape of Montana (where the stories were mostly set), the simple construction of the sentences, the everyday, working-class characters, the way all the characters had to deal with death in some way, and the regular, everyday names of the characters (sounds weird, but it was nice to read “normal” names like Dale, Jason, Jeannette, Terry, and so on). What I didn’t like, what was disappointing, was that the stories didn’t really do anything. They didn’t go anywhere (again, with the exception of “In Hindsight,” which covered a woman’s ENTIRE LIFE). They were more or less all character studies, which I wouldn’t classify as stories at all. Mind you, they weren’t NEARLY as fucking odd or avant garde as some “literary” short stories I’ve read. And they were ten times more enjoyable than, say, Raymond Carver or Denis Johnson’s stuff. But I swear to Christ, Wink’s stories were very similar to SO many other “literary” stories I’ve read. It seems like all the MFA writing programs in the country have a conference, decide on this one style of story - the format that meanders and is very poetic but doesn’t actually go anywhere, and then teach that format to EVERY motherfucking writer who attends those programs. I know what they’re trying to do - they’re trying to capture real life as accurately as they can. But don’t they fucking realize that it’s FICTION? It doesn’t HAVE to mimic life exactly. It can be dramatic, it can add up and make sense by the end. IT’S OKAY. Fuck, man, that’s why people read stories - BECAUSE THINGS HAPPEN AND THERE’S RESOLUTION. But I digress. Bottom line is that I really enjoyed this book and would definitely read whatever else Wink publishes. The guy is a hell of a writer.
May 5, 2017
A just so-so collection of short stories. There were a few spots of fairly good writing, but nothing to write home about. There really isn't one story in the bunch that I’d say would be worth your while, to drive to your library to pick up this collection for.
However, at least I’m over my book hangover. Not because this book was so great, but because even mediocre short stories can act as a little hair-of-the-dog, so to speak. Bite-sized snacks that they are, they’re often just the thing to get you feeling like you can still see a story through to the end.
For anyone who cares, here’s a rundown:
Dog Run Moon - (2 stars)
A lonely man steals a neighbor’s dog, and the story tells of the midnight pursuit by the neighbor to take his dog back. It was okay. Good ending.
Runoff - (1 star)
The story of a young college drop-out meeting a newly divorced woman and striking up some semblance of a relationship. Poorly executed and poorly written. Barely interesting.
One More Last Stand - (2.5 stars)
A man dresses as General Custer to participate in a Little Bighorn reenactment year after year, and this is his last time. Each year his wife stays at home, and he reunites with his Indian “friend.”
Breatharians - (2 stars)
A 12-year-old boy caught between feuding parents on a working farm. Fairly well-written, but mainly depressing. And PETA people will hate this story; even I was cringing.
Exotics - (2.5 stars)
James teaches in an exclusive, preppy one-room schoolhouse during the year, but takes a job as a ranch hand over the summer. Not bad.
Sun Dance - (3 stars)
Finally! A story with a point… It’s about a building construction manager, and his not-quite-conscious search for absolution after an incident on a job site.
Off The Track - (3 stars)
The story of a sixteen-year-old boy’s 2-year stint in juvenile detention, and the family he leaves on the outside. I didn’t love the actual content of this story, but it was most certainly well written.
Crow Country Moses: (1.5 stars)
A father and son visit Crow Country in Montana. *yawn* Rather dull, and unnecessarily crude.
In Hindsight: (3 stars)
The condensed account of one woman’s life, which was a blend of regret and perseverance. Long for a short story, but solid.
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