Ganado Red: A Novella and Stories

by Susan Lowell

From KIRKUS Lowell collects a novella and eight short stories, primarily set in various eras of the American Southwest. In “The Kill,” a Montanan's choice of college is on the other side of the country, in Princeton, New Jersey, but he doesn’t stray far from his roots; he even keeps a hunting rifle under his bed, and his ways seem to fascinate his English professor. However, for the most part, a theme of shared experience threads through Lowell’s book. In “Lavinia Peace,” wife and mother Lynn has spent her life in the Western United States, unlike her single, free-spirited sister, Catherine. But the two share, via photos and letters, memories of their great-grandmother and her great love, George. Similarly, the titular novella follows myriad characters through decades in Arizona and New Mexico, all connected by a rug that Adjiba Yazzie first weaves in 1920. It changes hands and homes several times until the 1980s, and its discernible blood-red color signifies a unity among people who otherwise have no blood relation. The author’s lyrical prose has a surreal quality; in “White Canyon,” for example, a young girl in the 1950s suffers a fall, and the scene abruptly transitions to 1980, when she’s living in Dallas with her husband and child. As an adult, she has headaches and seems to lose time, which may stem from radiation exposure when she was younger. But in all of Lowell’s tales, her prose ignites the senses, such as in the description of a woman weeping over a stove and hearing “tears dropping upon the hot metal with faint hisses.” Adjiba is described as enjoying working outside “under the broad blue sky” with the cottonwood trees’ “fresh light green against the cinnamon sand.” Scholes’ simple but distinctive black-and-white sketches preface each story as well as each of the novella’s five chapters. Incisive, profound, and colorful tales.Here, a striking first collection--eight stories and a novella--from Lowell, winner of the first Milkweed Editions National Fiction Prize. Lowell writes mostly about the American Southwest and shows more interest in terrain--both psychic and geographic--than plot. Tenses shift, time speeds up and slows down, and Lowell's characters often Fall down existential rabbit-holes of memory, fear, or angst. These stories have an almost dreamlike movement but, grounded as they are in precise and poetic detail, they remain convincingly real. The narrator of ""White Canyon"" shares her nostalgic memories of childhood in a Utah uranium-mining along with more innocuous scenes, there's the chattering of Geiger counters during a fallout storm. Then the story jumps to the present, with the narrator's hospitalization and discovery of a brain tumor. All of a sudden, her memories are not merely nostalgic, but an attempt to make sense of experience and perception. Lowell is adept at presenting cross-sections of ""Los Mojados"" looks at the relationships between two generations of Anglo ranchers, Mexican cowboys, and illegal aliens; ""Wild Pigs"" charts the reactions of five different households to the javelinas that appear in a one-time desert wilderness now developed for condos, highways and Pizza Huts; the novella ""Ganado Red,"" in five storylike chapters, follows a Navajo rug from the hands of the woman who weaves it in 1920. through the hands of the various people who buy it up until 1981. An impressive debut--and a splendid start for the Milkweed Editions contest.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

152 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1988

About the author

Susan Lowell often writes about the Southwest border country in both fiction and nonfiction. Her forthcoming adult short-story collection, "Two Desperados,” returns to the genre of her first book, “Ganado Red.” Her family has lived in the American West since Gold Rush days, and family stories have inspired many children’s books as well as an adult novel in progress called “The Wild West Waltz” (see the story “Two Desperados” for a preview!)
She and her husband divide their time between Tucson, Arizona and a ranch near the Mexican border.

Reviews

[Cooper Denny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to review an assortment of stories. Themes of the southwest with a focus on Arizona and Navajo weaving.None of the stories particularly stuck with me. Some parts felt unnecessarily cryptic which hurt the flow of the story. Not bad for a last minute pick up at a Gallup gas station.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite in this book
of short stories was the
title story, "Ganado Red",
a novella about a blanket
as it was sold and resold,
traveling from person to
person, and the lives the
blanket affected.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

First experience with this author. I was pleased to open the cover and discover that this copy, which I picked up at a book exchange, was signed. This author, Susan Lowell, has a lifetime of experience living in the southwest, and not as a golf-playing tourist but as a fourth generation Arizonan descended from ranchers and miners. She knows this part of the country, its cultures, its history, and its people, inside out. She writes from the heart with unbiased clarity and without sentimentality.

Lowell’s writing is taut. Superfluous words have no place here. The short stories, some written in first person, take you deeply into the psyche of the character without spelling everything out for the reader. Each story presents a slice of life that unfolds with varying degrees of tension. You have to pay attention or you’ll miss a critical piece of the puzzle. I read this book more slowly than I usually read.

The book also contains a novella. A fascinating tale where the different characters stories are all linked by a Navajo rug, woven with precision and love, in the early 1920s. I liked the tone of this part of the book the best. It was a little more relaxed in style.

I’m very pleased that I stumbled across Ganado Red. Well worth reading.

[Carolyn (in SC) C234D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this fourteen years ago. Can't remember details now, but at the time I wrote "A terrific book of short stories and a novella, by Susan Lowell. A certain tension in each story. Most, but not all, set in the Southwest."

(My rule of thumb with books of short stories is to take my time, not read them all at once. Appreciate each story on its own. Read other things in between.)

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

03.12.2014 on Display @ Berea; Milkweed 1988 best book; a novella and stories; stories chronicling the history of a Navajo rug. Some stories are very good, some not so good; the novella was very enjoyable; 1st Milkweed National Fiction Prize winner, been on my “to read” list for years; 1988 hardcover paperback purchased via Robie Books, Berea, KY; 150 pgs.; 4 out of 5 stars; finished Mar. 11, 2016/#19

[Earl McGill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although best known for her "Javelinas" children's books, this is the one that shows Susan Lowell's skills as poet and writer. This little gem impressed me so much that I went to Cameron AZ and bought a genuine Ganado Red. Recommended to anyone who enjoys well-written stories.

E. J. McGill, author of Jet Age Man.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this a long time ago- but ready to read again. Was reminded of it by Great House/Krauss, as both have an inanimate object as a near-character or catalyst or object that links unrelated stories into a novel.

[Denis Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not usually a big short-story fan, I really enjoyed this. I like stories with a solid sense of place, and Ganado Red delivers.