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We Are Not in This Together: Stories
Eight short stories portray the struggles of ordinary people to cope with the problems of life in the contemporary American West
- GenresShort Stories
128 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1984
3 people are currently reading
99 people want to read
About the author
William Kittredge
49 books26 followersWilliam Kittredge was born in 1932 in Portland, Oregon.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 24, 2025
I bumped this up to 5 stars after realizing it completely blew my mind and I think about it all the time and I will never sell my copy and I recommend it to everyone
July 3, 2020
Kittredge’s collection of short stories sparked my interest because, being quite familiar with the literature of the South, I had always wanted to read about the rural West. I was not the least bit disappointed.
Some people might be turned off because of the short stories’ brutality and incessant pessimism. While it might be true, it’s impossible to deny the fact that each of these stories has its unique atmosphere; you get soaked into the world that Kittredge tries to recreate for you in minute detail. His pessimism is of special, existentialist quality. He deals with difficult subject matter in a natural way, almost taking it for granted. This serves as the basis for the tone of his voice: distant, painfully graphic, in-your-face and stripped of unnecessary detail. Still, his minimalist narrative is quite unlike that of Raymond Carver or Ernest Hemingway, as Kittredge, though maintaining his undertoned voice and almost barebones text, pays a lot of attention to objects and activities — weapons and shooting them, cars and driving them in unspoilt wilderness — native to the places and the people he describes, to facilitate a better understanding of the culture.
His topics are varied, his characters diverse, but death is always there, hanging around or directly involved, like the only natural outcome of any conflict he describes. This omnipresent power overlooks people doing their usual things: loving, hating, having arguments with the authorities, quarrelling with each other, going mad, losing their closest ones. Kittredge’s verbal painting of the West is indeed dim. His people drink and get entangled in illegal activities and crime; by doing so, they drown the sorrow and misery of their existence, or escape from the hostile environment. These people may be different as far as their background, origin, or even ethnicity is concerned, but they share the common burden of lingering their days out with no obvious purpose.
There are those who have lost their children, parents, siblings — the inevitability of loss is the very definition of these people’s lives. Yet there is another common issue that ties them together — the lack of understanding, compassion, or communication. Kittredge’s characters are all outsiders who seem to be living apart from other people. They have dysfunctional families and soured relationship. (Un)Surprisingly, in the world of Kittredge’s, there is simply no society to speak of, as there is no sense of a communal living of any kind. This is a strictly dog-eat-dog environment, where people purposely break connections between each other — be it bonds of family relationship, or work, or community — in order to be alone. Their aloneness, however, will always lead to loneliness, but by the time they come to realise it, it will have become too late. Death waits for no man, for death has no interest in people’s mundane chores and petty arguments. When one’s time is up, the others will have to face the consequences of one’s passing. Those who remain will never be able to make amends, and their words of remorse will forever be unsaid.
The only story that stands out is the eponymous one, which serves as a strong conclusion of the collection for it gives a tiny bit of hope and optimism. While maintaining the grim tone of the preceding tales and having perhaps the two most most disturbing opening paragraphs I have ever read, it deals with reunification rather than division. The family couple are still going through a difficult stage, where their relationship is marred by mutual misunderstanding; the accident which spurs the interaction between the husband and the wife is utterly terrifying, but there is a strong feeling that they need each other despite anything. However, after so many years of seclusion they don’t know how to handle their passion for one another; the one takes to lying, the other is mutilating himself, and they have grown so cold-hearted that they substitute aggressive behavior for years of unrealised affection and desire. After the act of killing that brings them together again, will they be able to save this spark and learn how not to be alone? Kittredge leaves this question unanswered — just as many other questions that he raises.
Some people might be turned off because of the short stories’ brutality and incessant pessimism. While it might be true, it’s impossible to deny the fact that each of these stories has its unique atmosphere; you get soaked into the world that Kittredge tries to recreate for you in minute detail. His pessimism is of special, existentialist quality. He deals with difficult subject matter in a natural way, almost taking it for granted. This serves as the basis for the tone of his voice: distant, painfully graphic, in-your-face and stripped of unnecessary detail. Still, his minimalist narrative is quite unlike that of Raymond Carver or Ernest Hemingway, as Kittredge, though maintaining his undertoned voice and almost barebones text, pays a lot of attention to objects and activities — weapons and shooting them, cars and driving them in unspoilt wilderness — native to the places and the people he describes, to facilitate a better understanding of the culture.
His topics are varied, his characters diverse, but death is always there, hanging around or directly involved, like the only natural outcome of any conflict he describes. This omnipresent power overlooks people doing their usual things: loving, hating, having arguments with the authorities, quarrelling with each other, going mad, losing their closest ones. Kittredge’s verbal painting of the West is indeed dim. His people drink and get entangled in illegal activities and crime; by doing so, they drown the sorrow and misery of their existence, or escape from the hostile environment. These people may be different as far as their background, origin, or even ethnicity is concerned, but they share the common burden of lingering their days out with no obvious purpose.
There are those who have lost their children, parents, siblings — the inevitability of loss is the very definition of these people’s lives. Yet there is another common issue that ties them together — the lack of understanding, compassion, or communication. Kittredge’s characters are all outsiders who seem to be living apart from other people. They have dysfunctional families and soured relationship. (Un)Surprisingly, in the world of Kittredge’s, there is simply no society to speak of, as there is no sense of a communal living of any kind. This is a strictly dog-eat-dog environment, where people purposely break connections between each other — be it bonds of family relationship, or work, or community — in order to be alone. Their aloneness, however, will always lead to loneliness, but by the time they come to realise it, it will have become too late. Death waits for no man, for death has no interest in people’s mundane chores and petty arguments. When one’s time is up, the others will have to face the consequences of one’s passing. Those who remain will never be able to make amends, and their words of remorse will forever be unsaid.
The only story that stands out is the eponymous one, which serves as a strong conclusion of the collection for it gives a tiny bit of hope and optimism. While maintaining the grim tone of the preceding tales and having perhaps the two most most disturbing opening paragraphs I have ever read, it deals with reunification rather than division. The family couple are still going through a difficult stage, where their relationship is marred by mutual misunderstanding; the accident which spurs the interaction between the husband and the wife is utterly terrifying, but there is a strong feeling that they need each other despite anything. However, after so many years of seclusion they don’t know how to handle their passion for one another; the one takes to lying, the other is mutilating himself, and they have grown so cold-hearted that they substitute aggressive behavior for years of unrealised affection and desire. After the act of killing that brings them together again, will they be able to save this spark and learn how not to be alone? Kittredge leaves this question unanswered — just as many other questions that he raises.
November 14, 2008
You must read Kittredge particularly if you have a shred of interest in the contemporary American west - and if you have an opportunity to hear him read from and discuss his work don't miss it. He has a remarkable driving delivery that is as spectacular as Allen Ginsburgs voice was awful.
January 4, 2018
An amazing collection of short stories from a writer who always deserved more attention than he got. Alternating between hard and heartbreaking, this is craft writing.
May 20, 2020
Grim.
June 1, 2007
Great stories of the West. Like Carver, he draws literature out of sometimes lowly circumstances. Title story is a great one -- and one that will have resonance for anyone in the region who remembers the Glacier Park bear attacks it's based on.
January 3, 2011
Stories of the West. Hardscrabble stories written with tenderness. Evocative of Annie Proulx.
December 20, 2011
His essays and memoir are epic. These stories, not so much.
May 2, 2012
Strong medicine, these stories.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews