Country of Cold
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Set in the beautiful, often uncompromising isolation of the central plains of North America, Kevin Patterson’s haunting stories explore the extent to which geography is destiny. In "Les is More" an overweight bartender determines to break the monotony of his life by curling up in a steel barrel and going over the local waterfalls. In "The Perseid Shower" a son reflects on his father's passion for meteor showers and all he failed to understand about his father's galaxy. In "Boatbuilding," a lonely divorcee builds a vessel with which she hopes to leave behind one life and drop anchor in another. And in the final story, characters from across the collection make a curious but moving connection at their high school reunion in Dunsmuir, Manitoba.Author of the acclaimed memoir The Water in Between—a New York Times Notable Book—Kevin Patterson has poured his narrative gifts, his familiarity with the natural world, and a delicate understanding of human nature, into a striking fiction debut.Publishers WeeklyThis debut collection of 13 linked stories from the acclaimed author of the travel memoir The Water in Between tracks eccentric and genuinely torn-up characters through barren, dramatic regions. The volume begins with the story of an obese malcontent's journey over a waterfall in a barrel ("Les Is More") and ends with the account of a charged high school reunion in the same riverside town ("Manitoba Avenue"). Patterson is an avid and successful describer of place; the locales in this book, all fairly frigid, range from northern Canada to France. The everyday barbarism that often erupts in his landscapes rarely slackens, although it assumes radically different forms. In "Boat Building," divorcee Carol builds an ocean-going vessel and sets herself literally and psychologically adrift. In "Starlight, Starbright," a man serving as a doctor in a remote Canadian military outpost suddenly finds himself thrust headlong into the middle of a firing exercise. There are strained, overambitious touches, as when Patterson ends numerous stories with "This was in [year]." This technique, although initially disarming, becomes almost maudlin with repetition. Also, the tone of the book is occasionally too wry for its themes, too self-consciously clever. Patterson is at his best when bringing out the natural poetry of the landscapes that fascinate him-at such moments he writes with the power of Russell Banks or Annie Proulx, with a gaze that both appreciates the beauty of the imagined scene and understands the socioeconomic complexities looming over it. (Jan. 21) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Les is More3Interposition33Gabriella: Parts One and Two45Sick in Public59Insomnia, Infidelity, and The Leopard Seal81Structure is Constant89Country of Cold105Saw Marks151Boatbuilding161The Perseid Shower183Hudson Bay, in Winter197Starlight, Starbright215Manitoba Avenue237
