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Half in Love: Stories
Fourteen remarkable stories that combine strong Western settings with a subtle and distinct female voice. This critically celebrated debut collection marks the exciting beginning of prize-winner Meloy’s promising career.
Lean and controlled in their narration, abundant and moving in their effects, Maile Meloy’s stories introduce a striking talent. Most are set in the modern American West, made vivid and unexpected in Meloy’s unsentimental vision; others take us to Paris, wartime London, and Greece, with the same remarkable skill and intuition.
In “Four Lean Hounds, ca. 1976,” two couples face a complicated grief when one of the four dies. In “Ranch Girl,” the college-bound daughter of a ranch foreman must choose which adult world she wants to occupy. In “A Stakes Horse,” a woman confronts risk and loss at the racetrack and at home. And in “Aqua Boulevard”—winner of the 2001 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction—an elderly Parisian confronts his mortality. Meloy’s command of her characters’ voices is breathtaking; their fears and desires are deftly illuminated. Smart, surprising, and evocative, Meloy’s brilliantly observed stories fully engage the mind and heart.
Lean and controlled in their narration, abundant and moving in their effects, Maile Meloy’s stories introduce a striking talent. Most are set in the modern American West, made vivid and unexpected in Meloy’s unsentimental vision; others take us to Paris, wartime London, and Greece, with the same remarkable skill and intuition.
In “Four Lean Hounds, ca. 1976,” two couples face a complicated grief when one of the four dies. In “Ranch Girl,” the college-bound daughter of a ranch foreman must choose which adult world she wants to occupy. In “A Stakes Horse,” a woman confronts risk and loss at the racetrack and at home. And in “Aqua Boulevard”—winner of the 2001 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction—an elderly Parisian confronts his mortality. Meloy’s command of her characters’ voices is breathtaking; their fears and desires are deftly illuminated. Smart, surprising, and evocative, Meloy’s brilliantly observed stories fully engage the mind and heart.
174 pages, Paperback
First published July 8, 2002
51 people are currently reading
1477 people want to read
About the author
Maile Meloy
33 books887 followersMaile Meloy is the author of the novels Liars and Saints and A Family Daughter, the story collections Half in Love and Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It (named one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the New York Times Book Review), and the award-winning Apothecary trilogy for young readers. She has received the PEN/Malamud Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was chosen as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. Her new novel for adults, Do Not Become Alarmed, will be published June 6, 2017.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 148 reviews
February 14, 2022
(3.5) Meloy’s was a new name for me when I picked this up as part of a bargain secondhand book haul last year, but she’s actually published 10 books and is esteemed in literary circles; Ann Patchett even dedicated her latest release, These Precious Days, to her.
Meloy is from Montana and most of the 14 stories in this, her debut collection, are set in the contemporary American West among those who make their living from the outdoors, diving to work on hydroelectric dams or keeping cattle and horses. However, one of the more memorable stories, “Aqua Boulevard,” is set in Paris, where a geriatric father can’t tamp down his worries for his offspring.
The few historical stories have a melancholy air, with protagonists whose star has faded. There’s the brief, touching portrait of an outmoded career in “The Ice Harvester” and the secondhand reminiscences of being in late-colonial diplomatic service in the Middle East in “Last of the White Slaves”; “Red” is about an American soldier stationed in London during the Second World War.
Crime and its consequences recur. I loved the opening story, “Tome,” about a lawyer whose client wants her to keep in touch after he goes to jail. Teenage girls are the title characters in a couple of stories; “Ranch Girl” is in the second person. “Kite Whistler Aquamarine” is a heartbreaker about a filly born premature one winter. “Paint” was the standout for me: it’s pretty terrifying what a wife’s temporary attitude of neglect leads to when her luckless husband undertakes some DIY.
As is usual with a collection, a few of the stories left little impression on me. But there’s sufficient range and depth here to induce me to seek out more of Meloy’s work. I can recommend this to readers of Claire Boyles, David Guterson, Lily King, Jane Smiley and David Vann.
Favourite passages:
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Meloy is from Montana and most of the 14 stories in this, her debut collection, are set in the contemporary American West among those who make their living from the outdoors, diving to work on hydroelectric dams or keeping cattle and horses. However, one of the more memorable stories, “Aqua Boulevard,” is set in Paris, where a geriatric father can’t tamp down his worries for his offspring.
The few historical stories have a melancholy air, with protagonists whose star has faded. There’s the brief, touching portrait of an outmoded career in “The Ice Harvester” and the secondhand reminiscences of being in late-colonial diplomatic service in the Middle East in “Last of the White Slaves”; “Red” is about an American soldier stationed in London during the Second World War.
Crime and its consequences recur. I loved the opening story, “Tome,” about a lawyer whose client wants her to keep in touch after he goes to jail. Teenage girls are the title characters in a couple of stories; “Ranch Girl” is in the second person. “Kite Whistler Aquamarine” is a heartbreaker about a filly born premature one winter. “Paint” was the standout for me: it’s pretty terrifying what a wife’s temporary attitude of neglect leads to when her luckless husband undertakes some DIY.
As is usual with a collection, a few of the stories left little impression on me. But there’s sufficient range and depth here to induce me to seek out more of Meloy’s work. I can recommend this to readers of Claire Boyles, David Guterson, Lily King, Jane Smiley and David Vann.
Favourite passages:
“Be interesting in your twenties,” Suzy says. “Otherwise you’ll want to do it in your thirties or forties, when it wreaks all kinds of havoc, and you’ve got a husband and kids.”
Eugénie invited my husband to Greece every summer because she wanted him to publish her memoir. She had lived a remarkable life but didn’t have a remarkable book, and it dragged through slow ghostwritten revisions. Every year, at work in the hot city, I thought of blue water and white bougainvillea and forgot how exhausting it was to be her guest, to stay in favor and say the right things. So each summer we would arrive, look at the new draft, give careful suggestions that would not be taken, and find ourselves on the terrace waiting for her to trip mercifully off to bed.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
May 14, 2020
From a lawyer who wants to help her irritating and irrational client, to a man who thinks he could have done more to save his diving buddy; from a clever girl who only wants to marry, to a white American living in Saudi Arabia who accuses his servant of theft, these stories are filled with regret and longing. They all share the same resonant nostalgic tone and are filled with 'ordinary' people making (often poor) choices. I loved them all (even though a couple ended a little too abruptly), and that doesn't happen often in a short story collection. A few of them were included in the film Certain Women, which actually, I didn't like half as much as this book.
December 4, 2011
"Half in Love" will always remain one of my absolute most-favorite short story collections. Ranging from WW II England to Montana ranch country to American suburbia, "Half in Love" explores just that, the nature of love between strangers, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and sons.
Of all the stories, the most powerful (for this reader anyway) is "Red," the story of an American soldier in WW II England who is so desperate for warmth and beauty that he tries to "extract" some measure of happiness from a war widow, only to find that the damage of war is so insipid and far-reaching, that the best they can muster between them is grief.
What I admire so greatly about Maile Meloy is her precision, her spare, heartbreaking prose. She is not interested in wow-ing us with over-the-top poetic language, but with the subtle nuance of minimalism and restraint.
A must-read for all lovers of short stories, and all writers of them, too.
Of all the stories, the most powerful (for this reader anyway) is "Red," the story of an American soldier in WW II England who is so desperate for warmth and beauty that he tries to "extract" some measure of happiness from a war widow, only to find that the damage of war is so insipid and far-reaching, that the best they can muster between them is grief.
What I admire so greatly about Maile Meloy is her precision, her spare, heartbreaking prose. She is not interested in wow-ing us with over-the-top poetic language, but with the subtle nuance of minimalism and restraint.
A must-read for all lovers of short stories, and all writers of them, too.
April 20, 2025
9/10 ⭐
February 27, 2024
the stories set in montana or the southwest worked better for me than the ones set in other countries, but still loved this collection overall.
favorites: four lean hounds, ca. 1976; ranch girl; kite whistler aquamarine; a stakes horse
favorites: four lean hounds, ca. 1976; ranch girl; kite whistler aquamarine; a stakes horse
March 8, 2011
There was a time when I enjoyed stark, skeletal stories like these; now I find them more withholding than "lean and composed." But that's just me.
February 22, 2010
I will be honest and tell you that I requested books by Maile Meloy from my library because I adore Colin Meloy's singing and lyrics. Even his banter with the crowd during a concert is amusing and endearing.
Anyway, uh, right, Maile Meloy. Usually I look forward to short stories, but after the first two or three in a book, they all go downhill. The first story, "Tome", was about a lawyer who went to help her client in a hostage situation. The second was a teeny bit contrived, about a man who realizes his dead friend wasn't exactly the best friend a man could have, but I was very amused by the lyrics in a song mentioned in the book, (actually an e. e. cummings poem) "All in green went my love riding, on a great horse of gold into the silver dawn." It made me smile because of a Decemberists song that went "My true love went riding out in green and white and grey..." I wonder if the Meloy parents emphasized e. e. cummings in their house.
The third, fourth, and fifth stories weren't my favorite. They just felt like tiny peeks at different people's sad lives. However, the reason I like this book so much is that when the sixth story, Red, comes along, everything starts to get better again. I'm really looking forward to reading more by her.
Anyway, uh, right, Maile Meloy. Usually I look forward to short stories, but after the first two or three in a book, they all go downhill. The first story, "Tome", was about a lawyer who went to help her client in a hostage situation. The second was a teeny bit contrived, about a man who realizes his dead friend wasn't exactly the best friend a man could have, but I was very amused by the lyrics in a song mentioned in the book, (actually an e. e. cummings poem) "All in green went my love riding, on a great horse of gold into the silver dawn." It made me smile because of a Decemberists song that went "My true love went riding out in green and white and grey..." I wonder if the Meloy parents emphasized e. e. cummings in their house.
The third, fourth, and fifth stories weren't my favorite. They just felt like tiny peeks at different people's sad lives. However, the reason I like this book so much is that when the sixth story, Red, comes along, everything starts to get better again. I'm really looking forward to reading more by her.
June 16, 2019
Aching. Haunting. Brief. Cold. Stony. Varied.
Some of these stories hurt to read. Some feel like they're the beginning of a larger story. Others feel like the end of a deeply sad epic. There's a useful aimlessness to it. And at the end of a chapter I almost always felt like shivering in sorrow.
Some of these stories hurt to read. Some feel like they're the beginning of a larger story. Others feel like the end of a deeply sad epic. There's a useful aimlessness to it. And at the end of a chapter I almost always felt like shivering in sorrow.
June 30, 2024
(4.5)
This was the first book we read for the Adaptation Book Club, pairing this with a future watching of the film Certain Women, which adapts 2 of the stories in this collection (marked below with a †) plus a another (which is actually included in this lil notes write up at the bottom). Overall, I really enjoyed this collection and just loved Meloy's writing! The stories definitely started out stronger but overall the collection is incredible and probably the best thing I've read so far this year (followed by Dark Force Rising)!
Anyway, as summary of my thoughts on the 14 (!! wow btw! all so short too!) stories in the collection (favourites are starred!):
†Tome ★ - Oh wow, this little story was a rollercoaster! I love how effortlessly it changes genre and plays with you expectations within it's lean 15 page length! I'm already in love with Meloys writing style. Love the thriller element of this too!
Four Lean Hounds - A really beautiful little tale of guilt and grief! Just loved the narrative voice here.
†Native Sandstone - I like the idea of this but I feel like the whole thing of having a physical manifestation of unresolved hopes/dreams would work better visually (guess we'll see about that soon!).
Ranch Girl ★ - As a rural person who has been drawn back into my home town and all its drama, I just love the authentic feel and tone of this (tho Midwestern ranching is a little different to British midlands' warehousing and forestry). Really liked the unorthodox use of second person, it just worked so well!
Garrison Junction - The only story so far that I felt really could've been longer ngl!
Red - A sweet wartime story that I've seen a few times but was a delight to read in Meloys style anyway!
Aqua Boulevard - The first one I didn't like really...Just wasn't for me!
The River - Another pretty flat one! I liked the prose for interior monologue but didn't resonate much with the actual story.
Kite Whistler Aquamarine - I really liked the protagonists plot at work in this and found it was more interesting than the horse plot, even though that ending was very hard hitting regardless.
The Last of the White Slaves - I didn't enjoy the framing narrative much but Miles' story was so cool, and I kinda want to see an anthology novel about his whole life!
Thirteen and a Half - Oh no, this one got cut off just as it got going! Needed another 5-10 pages here, I was gripped!
Paint - Didn't really get gripped by this one sadly.
The Ice Harvester - very short and sweet, definitely a nice little flex of her writing style.
A Stakes Horse - Of all her horsey stories (minus Ranch Girl obviously), I think this lands the hardest for me! Loved the main characters' interior monologue and thought the themes of it all worked a lot better! A good high to end on!!
And also, as mentioned, a cheeky bonus story by Meloy but not from this collection but available on The New Yorker and one of the ones adapted by Certain Women that we also needed to read...
†Travis, B ★ - I think this may be my favourite story of them all honestly! It's got lawyers, ice AND horses, all of Meloy's staples from the above stories, all to tell a gorgeous tale of longing and an almost-romance! I'm so excited to see this one in the film honestly!
This was the first book we read for the Adaptation Book Club, pairing this with a future watching of the film Certain Women, which adapts 2 of the stories in this collection (marked below with a †) plus a another (which is actually included in this lil notes write up at the bottom). Overall, I really enjoyed this collection and just loved Meloy's writing! The stories definitely started out stronger but overall the collection is incredible and probably the best thing I've read so far this year (followed by Dark Force Rising)!
Anyway, as summary of my thoughts on the 14 (!! wow btw! all so short too!) stories in the collection (favourites are starred!):
†Tome ★ - Oh wow, this little story was a rollercoaster! I love how effortlessly it changes genre and plays with you expectations within it's lean 15 page length! I'm already in love with Meloys writing style. Love the thriller element of this too!
Four Lean Hounds - A really beautiful little tale of guilt and grief! Just loved the narrative voice here.
†Native Sandstone - I like the idea of this but I feel like the whole thing of having a physical manifestation of unresolved hopes/dreams would work better visually (guess we'll see about that soon!).
Ranch Girl ★ - As a rural person who has been drawn back into my home town and all its drama, I just love the authentic feel and tone of this (tho Midwestern ranching is a little different to British midlands' warehousing and forestry). Really liked the unorthodox use of second person, it just worked so well!
Garrison Junction - The only story so far that I felt really could've been longer ngl!
Red - A sweet wartime story that I've seen a few times but was a delight to read in Meloys style anyway!
Aqua Boulevard - The first one I didn't like really...Just wasn't for me!
The River - Another pretty flat one! I liked the prose for interior monologue but didn't resonate much with the actual story.
Kite Whistler Aquamarine - I really liked the protagonists plot at work in this and found it was more interesting than the horse plot, even though that ending was very hard hitting regardless.
The Last of the White Slaves - I didn't enjoy the framing narrative much but Miles' story was so cool, and I kinda want to see an anthology novel about his whole life!
Thirteen and a Half - Oh no, this one got cut off just as it got going! Needed another 5-10 pages here, I was gripped!
Paint - Didn't really get gripped by this one sadly.
The Ice Harvester - very short and sweet, definitely a nice little flex of her writing style.
A Stakes Horse - Of all her horsey stories (minus Ranch Girl obviously), I think this lands the hardest for me! Loved the main characters' interior monologue and thought the themes of it all worked a lot better! A good high to end on!!
And also, as mentioned, a cheeky bonus story by Meloy but not from this collection but available on The New Yorker and one of the ones adapted by Certain Women that we also needed to read...
†Travis, B ★ - I think this may be my favourite story of them all honestly! It's got lawyers, ice AND horses, all of Meloy's staples from the above stories, all to tell a gorgeous tale of longing and an almost-romance! I'm so excited to see this one in the film honestly!
May 12, 2024
4,5 ⭐️
April 16, 2022
I’m not a frequent reader of short stories; I prefer fiction that I can dive into and stay for a while. After seeing Ann Patchett’s recommendation of this book, I decided to try it. What mastery of writing, characterization, and plot! I read these stories marveling at the scenarios Meloy creates and the vivid, dimensional characters she populates them with.
April 14, 2020
Like others here I watched Kelly Reichardt's film Certain Women in 2016 and was intrigued enough to see what the original stories were like. I bought Maile Molloy's Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It and was simply knocked-out by it. I then went for Half In Love (where two out of the three tales in the movie come from) and was again enormously impressed. Most of the stories are barely 12 pages long yet she manages to dive deep into her character's lives often through a single incident or set or circumstances. I particularly liked Garrison Junction (life, death, love and almost everything else) as a couple get stuck in a snow storm and are forced to wait it out in a cafe. I find Molloy's writing rich, humane, and pretty emotionally astute. Trying one of her novels next. See if she can pull off the same narrative feats at greater length.
February 12, 2019
Maile Meloy is one of my favorite short story writers. I found this early collection (her debut, apparently) at Powells and have been savoring it during my lunch hours. Before this, I did not know she was from Helena, Montana and while not every story in this collection is set in the West, her authority and detail writing about it rivals Pam Houston's. "Ranch Girl" "Thirteen and a Half" and "Four Lean Hounds" are standouts, but her talent and voice are alive in every story. "Paint" and "The Ice Harvester" are haunting portraits. Anyone studying what makes a story complete would do well to delve in.
March 11, 2010
I don't have high expectations, really. I mean, look at my track record...I'm easy to please. Yet, I could not find one story in this collection that I liked. Although beautifully written, each story is about as interesting as watching paint dry. Also, I don't always need to have a happy ending, but I do require purpose in a story. A reason to turn the page. Instead, what I got were sad, random glimpses into people's lives for no apparent reason than to show that's it's tough all over.
November 22, 2018
This book caused me to openly weep on a crowded train. It's not like I wasn't forewarned - I'd already read Liars And Saints and Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It - but this one just shattered me the way only sublime beauty can. My heart was left gaping.
March 18, 2019
Deliciously tragic. I could only read one every few days because these stories land hard on the heart. They left me reeling from the immensity of the loss and suffering we experience as humans, yet relishing in our resilience and the universal longing to love and be loved.
March 27, 2020
Incredible stories, beautiful in their quiet the way I had hoped after seeing CERTAIN WOMEN. I need a gun and a horse NOW
Favorite story: Four Lean Hounds.
“”I want to get stoned and I want to go home and then I don’t know what I want,” she said. “I want to go back to Texas.””
Favorite story: Four Lean Hounds.
“”I want to get stoned and I want to go home and then I don’t know what I want,” she said. “I want to go back to Texas.””
November 22, 2020
the details about the trivial things - a sideway glance, a touch, an action - they all sound real to me. really love the power she delivers within a condensed form of this little collection.
July 28, 2018
I enjoyed the stories, some with a degree of sadness to them. They make you feel, they have emotional content.
August 20, 2018
Maybe even 5 stars. These aren't happy stories, but they are so beautifully written in deceptively simple prose. She's a fantastic writer.
January 27, 2021
ranch girl, tome, red, last of the white slaves, a stakes horse, thirteen & a half... nothing but the hits! paint i could have done without.
Read
April 7, 2021Nothing world shaking, but I enjoyed it. Meloy is so my type of writer, that even her mediocre stories are compelling.
September 29, 2020
Both Ways is the Only Way I Want it was much better
May 21, 2021
4 hrs, 220 w/m
September 15, 2025
Hell yeah. Just defines the characters so effortlessly and interestingly. And there’s so much variety in the stories. Meloy has quickly become one of my favorite authors.
April 8, 2012
This fine collection of stories is set mostly in Montana and were originally published in periodicals such as The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and The Ontario Review. Many have the sharply detailed yet emotionally elusive quality of New Yorker fiction, for example the first two stories, "Tome" and "Four Lean Hounds, ca. 1976."
In the first, a lawyer must deal with a disabled client who takes hostage a young employee of the state agency that has handled his case. The ironic details and the unpredictable turns of plot provide a wonky comic surface to an undertone of sad melancholy. There's melancholy also in the second story, as a young husband discovers at the funeral of a dead business partner that his friend and his wife have had a clandestine affair.
The troubled relationships between husbands and wives are a theme that runs through most of the stories. In "Gunnison Junction," a pregnant not-yet-married woman recognizes the impulse to walk away from her husband-to-be without looking back. The same couple reappears 15 years later in "Thirteen & a Half," parents of an adolescent now and at odds over how to react to the presence of a runaway with a gun in their midst, being pursued by the local police.
In "Paint," a husband lies dying after an accident on the deck he's refinishing, while inside the house, his wife cannot hear his pleas for help. In "The River," set in Utah, an older man and his ailing wife's friend are unable to penetrate her refusal to acknowledge her failing health.
For the most part, characters spring clearly from the page, the Montana settings are especially vivid, and the stories are well told, well paced, and fiercely focused on the human condition and the sadness of the situations that ordinary people's lives have led them to. Also recommended: Richard Ford's "Rock Springs."
In the first, a lawyer must deal with a disabled client who takes hostage a young employee of the state agency that has handled his case. The ironic details and the unpredictable turns of plot provide a wonky comic surface to an undertone of sad melancholy. There's melancholy also in the second story, as a young husband discovers at the funeral of a dead business partner that his friend and his wife have had a clandestine affair.
The troubled relationships between husbands and wives are a theme that runs through most of the stories. In "Gunnison Junction," a pregnant not-yet-married woman recognizes the impulse to walk away from her husband-to-be without looking back. The same couple reappears 15 years later in "Thirteen & a Half," parents of an adolescent now and at odds over how to react to the presence of a runaway with a gun in their midst, being pursued by the local police.
In "Paint," a husband lies dying after an accident on the deck he's refinishing, while inside the house, his wife cannot hear his pleas for help. In "The River," set in Utah, an older man and his ailing wife's friend are unable to penetrate her refusal to acknowledge her failing health.
For the most part, characters spring clearly from the page, the Montana settings are especially vivid, and the stories are well told, well paced, and fiercely focused on the human condition and the sadness of the situations that ordinary people's lives have led them to. Also recommended: Richard Ford's "Rock Springs."
January 1, 2016
I didn't care for this and am having trouble coming up with good reasons why. The author is a talented writer and the stories present interesting situations - a soldier in World War II on the night before he is to cross into France, a group of travelers stranded and one of them is a truck driver who has just been involved in a fatal accident, a man coming to the realization that his wife is seriously ill. Yet, I couldn't really get into them. Maybe it was the sameness of them - the desolate landscapes, the slightly depressed tone, the unhappy women tied to inconsiderate men with one syllable names, the characters whose reaction to crisis was to have sex, or fantasize about sex, with someone other than his or her spouse. I needed to get away from Cort, and Chase and Miles and Jack, and all of the characters who seem to be lawyers, but don't really practice law.
I know that many have admired this collection, and that they have good reasons for doing so, but it wasn't my cup of tea. The last story collection I read before this one was "The Tenth of December." After that, this seemed pretty ho-hum.
I know that many have admired this collection, and that they have good reasons for doing so, but it wasn't my cup of tea. The last story collection I read before this one was "The Tenth of December." After that, this seemed pretty ho-hum.
Want to read
July 26, 2022#4
When Haskell marries an ex-hippie, everyone on the ranch expects trouble. Suzy was a beauty once; now she's on her third husband and doesn't take any shit. Suzy reads Tarot cards, and when she lays them out to answer the question of Andy Tyler, the cards say hold out for him.
#8
At the deepest part of the channel I hear a shriek, and above us are two peregrines, one on either side of the river, hunting together. They both stop in trees and stare down at us, black-masked and hunched in the shoulders. The one on the right gives a high-pitched kek-kek-kek.
#9
He glared at me over fogged glasses and said nothing. Frost formed on the invisible hairs around the filly's velvet nose, bringing each hair into white-sheathed focus. My ears began to sting and I put my hands over them.
#11
Gina watched the girls walk away into the building, on their long, too-long legs, Amy's cast not slowing her down at all. They leaned into each other to talk, and glanced back at the car. Amy made an impatient gesture with her hands. Gina drove to the library, to hide out while the police did their work.
When Haskell marries an ex-hippie, everyone on the ranch expects trouble. Suzy was a beauty once; now she's on her third husband and doesn't take any shit. Suzy reads Tarot cards, and when she lays them out to answer the question of Andy Tyler, the cards say hold out for him.
#8
At the deepest part of the channel I hear a shriek, and above us are two peregrines, one on either side of the river, hunting together. They both stop in trees and stare down at us, black-masked and hunched in the shoulders. The one on the right gives a high-pitched kek-kek-kek.
#9
He glared at me over fogged glasses and said nothing. Frost formed on the invisible hairs around the filly's velvet nose, bringing each hair into white-sheathed focus. My ears began to sting and I put my hands over them.
#11
Gina watched the girls walk away into the building, on their long, too-long legs, Amy's cast not slowing her down at all. They leaned into each other to talk, and glanced back at the car. Amy made an impatient gesture with her hands. Gina drove to the library, to hide out while the police did their work.
November 20, 2017
I recently watched and adored a film called Certain Women, directed by Kelly Reichardt. I loved the way the stories carefully, unfolded and discovered that the writer was a novelist and a short story author. I immediately requested this collection and it was as good as expected. I love stories set in the modern American west and Meloy nails it here. I highly recommend it. Here is a taste:
“We left early, heading into a pale sunrise, and somewhere on the winding road through the canyons it turned into a hot, dry day. I sat with my feet on the dash, lead ropes and old race programs on the floor beneath me, and watched the mountains and the impossibly blue sky go by. I'd seen this landscape so much that most of my senses were glutted and one mountain range looked like the next. At other times, and this was one of those, it caught me by surprise and the blue was so vast and bright I couldn't breathe.”
“We left early, heading into a pale sunrise, and somewhere on the winding road through the canyons it turned into a hot, dry day. I sat with my feet on the dash, lead ropes and old race programs on the floor beneath me, and watched the mountains and the impossibly blue sky go by. I'd seen this landscape so much that most of my senses were glutted and one mountain range looked like the next. At other times, and this was one of those, it caught me by surprise and the blue was so vast and bright I couldn't breathe.”
October 29, 2020
I good collection of short stories - not quite as good as her later collection Both Ways is the Only Way I want It, but still very worth reading. The stories that take place in Montana were the stronger stories in the collection. I especially thought the two that centered around Chase and Gina - Garrison Junction and Thirteen and a Half were very thoughtful and well written. Meloy creates a real sense of place and situation in the Montana based stories. Whether it is on a ranch or a jail, or hostage situation or a race track these stories feel very lived in and fluid.
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