Far West

by Ron Tanner

Winner of the Elixir Press book prize: The ten stories in Ron Tanner's new collection, Far West, range widely--from a ruined fashion shoot in Baja California to a thwarted romance on a Pacific island. Quirky, funny, and sometimes near-tragic, these tales explore the idea of “frontier,” both emotional and geographic, as Tanner’s characters test the boundaries of their ambitions and strive mightily to realize their ever-elusive (American) dream. The author, who has lived and traveled extensively in America’s West, renders these landscapes with sensitivity and beauty, delivering with each story a journey that promises the unexpected at every turn.

Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 2021

About the author

Ron lives on an historic farm in Maryland, where he directs Good Contrivance Farm Writer's Retreat, an educational non-profit. Learn more at http://historicfarm.org.

Ron Tanner’s writing has been named “notable” in both Best American Essays and Best American Short Stories. His awards for fiction include the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize, the Jack Dyer Prize, the Charles Angoff Prize, the Faulkner Society gold medal, Pushcart Prize, New Letters Award, and many others, as well as fellowships from the Michener/Copernicus Society, Sewanee Writers Conference, and the National Park Service, to name a few. His novel Missile Paradise was named a “notable book of 2017” by the American Library Association. His most recent book, Far West, a story collection, won the Elixir Press book prize in 2020.

Reviews

[Alan David Gould · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ron Tanner is a very skilled writer who paints portraits of people that are like an existential map. They combine diverse and complex personality traits to give us a glimpse into their anything-but-placid interiors. Because Tanner is not just a skilled writer. He is a psychologist who sees into the character of people with a keen sense of humanity. Through graphic, often startling images and terse language, Tanner holds our attention with a series of riveting stories. His characters inspire pathos, but there’s also a perceived hopelessness in them that makes us want to step in and assist. The characters need to be coddled, supervised, and maintained. These people are struggling with the mediocrity of their lives. They have no future. They merely work at hopefulness and empty dreams. We never receive communion and we are given to understand that there is no salvation. They are destined to act out their inadequacies, their unbalance, their neurosis, if you will, unassisted.

But it’s this sense of hopelessness that keeps us coming back. Tanner can weave perpetual angst into a story in a variety of creative ways. The stories themselves take place in a variety of unexpected locations in forlorn, out-of-the-way places. Taken as a whole, the book is brilliant. It shines like a beacon on the inability of a variety of people to cope. There is quiet drama oozing everywhere. Though the stories are quite varied, the continuity is gripping. You simply won’t want to put it down.

Alan David Gould

[Michael Downs · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Go West!" has been an optimistic American admonition since the 19th-century, and in this collection Ron Tanner considers where that optimism and Far West dreams take us. Tanner's stories are fast-paced, funny, and kind – full of memorable characters and surprising twists. That doesn't mean that the old American optimism about the West always works out in his tales. Tarzan (yes, him) is a washed-up has-been trying to connect with this son; an American teenager who has traveled to an island across the Pacific struggles to understand love in her new life; super-models try but fail to save sea turtle eggs; and best of all, the drummer in an all-woman country band confronts her own failing to grow up both at home and on stage. It's with Rainey, the drummer, when her band performs, that Tanner gives us the West in all its gaudy illusions: "Nancy would be singing 'Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain' and flirting with the heavy drinkers up front because she wanted tips and that's what you do when you're in the spotlight: give people something to dream on.

[Allison Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve never been a fan of short stories. I feel that the abbreviated format deprives the reader of a well-developed plot and fully formed characters. Then I read Ron Tanner’s FAR WEST stories and realized you don’t need a lot of words to create a lasting impression; it’s the quality – not
quantity – of those words that matters. With descriptive passages woven seamlessly throughout his stories, Tanner paints with poetic polish a clear picture of his character’s surroundings. Slightly murkier is the emotional canvas of his protagonists; they all seem to be dissatisfied with their lives. Dropped into the middle of just another day in those lives, the reader quickly realizes how far from normal the circumstances really are. Somehow the main characters retain their composure when confronted with outrageous or even dangerous situations; Tanner’s calm narrative style helps to create the impression that there’s nothing out of the ordinary going on and allows the reader to suspend disbelief. There are no plots neatly tied up with a bow in these stories, but that just makes them more memorable. Poignant. Haunting. But enough of my words; here’s an example of a brief Tanner description – this one inserted into a long bit of dialogue to remind the reader of the setting: “a breeze made the knee-high grass undulate.” To enjoy more delightful phrases like this and meet some quirky characters who will stay with you, make sure to read Ron Tanner’s FAR WEST.