Fine Just the Way It Is by Annie Proulx. Simon & Schuster, 2008. 240 pages.

When critics attempt to define Annie Proulx’ writing style, they invariably use adjectives like “visceral” and “gritty.” Without question, she is the master of a method that blends dark humor, tragic bleakness and lyricism. Common sense suggests that these qualities appear incompatible — yet readers who laugh at the behavior of her eccentric/venal/callow characters also thrill at the beauty of her prose and ponder the fate of her spunky but luckless protagonists with tears in their eyes.

There are nine stories in this collection — the third in her “Wyoming Series,” and they run the gauntlet from an over-the-top urban myth (a kind of sagebrush demon that thrives on garbage and hapless cowboys) and two marvelous fantasies dealing with Satan’s management problems (Hell is becoming drab and boring) to a series of heartbreaking tales of hardships and suffering on the old frontier. Pity the thousands of newlyweds that blithely loaded a wagon (or a car) and drove into the Wyoming backcountry with visions of finding a lush Eden!

This is not a collection for the faint of heart. Even the marvelous “Family Man,” which presents a delightful caricature of a Wyoming retirement home, “The Mellowhorn,” combines humor with grim irony. The owner of the Mellowhorn believes that his elderly charges should enjoy “their last feeble years,” therefore he promotes smoking, drinking “and lascivious television programs.” There are very few males in the retirement home, but a plentitude of widows; consequently, the few “palsied men with beef jerky arms” can take their pick of “shapeless housecoats and flowery skeletons.” “Family Man” focuses on Ray Forkenbrock, who spends most of his time staring out the window and musing on the past. However, Ray dotes on his granddaughter and agrees to tell her a bit of family history. As he talks into her tape recorder, he gradually reveals a “dark family secret.” Dark it may be, but it is also hilarious.

Proulx prefaces “Them Old Cowboy Songs” with a bit of caution regarding the “frontier myth.” Many of the homesteaders who ventured into Wyoming in the 1880s “lived tough, raised a shoeless breed and founded ranch dynasties. Many more had short runs and were quickly forgotten.” Archie and Rose belong in the latter category. Archie sings impromptu ballads, loves his wife, endures daunting hardships (like being frozen to his saddle during a blizzard) and remains blissfully optimistic. Rose scratches a livelihood out of a hostile land, has a baby under daunting circumstances and waits for Archie to come home with enough “cowboying money” to start a farm. Yet, despite their stubborn persistence, this plucky couple dies tragically and miserably, leaving no trace. “Them Old Cowboy Songs” appears to be a tribute to the thousands of Wyoming’s vanquished homesteaders who fell victims to weather, hardship and starvation.

“The Great Divide” and “Testimony of the Donkey” both demonstrate that hardship and tragedy in Wyoming are not restricted to the 19th century. When Helen and Hi Acorn become victims of a 1920’s real estate scam that leaves them stranded on a sterile hilltop, they try to struggle on. When farming proves to be disastrous, Hi resorts to joining a dangerous venture — capturing wild horses with an old friend named Fenk. (Proulx has a knack for colorful names.) Belatedly, Hi discovers that the horses are destined for a dog food plant, and his life goes downhill from there. Catlin and Marc, an environmentally aware couple in “Testimony of the Donkey,” are adept at surviving in wilderness areas and have become seasoned campers and hikers — until they have a domestic argument and Catlin ends up alone on a desolate mountain with her foot trapped in a crevice. Once more, Proulx’ natural world becomes merciless.

For those readers who admire Proulx’s ability to craft a short story masterpiece like “Brokeback Mountain,” please note that this latest collection contains another tour de force, sporting the dubious title, “Tits Up in a Ditch.” The protagonist, Dakotah Lister, embodies heart, courage and hope, like many of Proulx’s characters. Abandoned by her mother, raised by her indifferent grandparents and betrayed by her devious paramour, Sash Hicks, Dakotah absorbs each defeat and gamely gets up and goes on. Ending up in Iraq where she endures injury and additional disillusionment, she does what is unusual in Proulx fiction: she survives.

(Gary Carden is a storyteller and writer from Sylva whose honors include winning the Brown-Hudson Folklore Award from the North Carolina Folklore Society and the Book of the Year award from the Appalachian Writers Association. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

Midwinter by Maurice Stanley. Whittler’s Bench Press, 2008. 208 pages.

North Carolina’s folklore and music resonates with the pain of doomed lovers and guilt-ridden killers: penitents who find themselves standing on a rough-hewn gallows before a silent multitude. In keeping with folk tradition, they often use their final moments for dramatic effect. “Profit from my example,” they say. “Take heed, or you, too, may try that awful road!”

Of all of the gallows confessions, none are as famous as Frankie Silver (1833). This alleged ax-murderess has inspired over a dozen novels and non-fiction treatments, several made-for-TV dramas, and a collection of bad plays and documentaries. Frankie’s notoriety is largely due to the fact that, in addition to cleaving her husband, Charlie, into pieces, she burned him in the fireplace.

Some accounts of this grisly affair have taken liberties with the facts and molded Frankie into either a courageous feminist or an innocent pawn. Over the years, the story has acquired additional layers of fanciful details, including ghosts, omens, divinations and conspiracy theories.

Maurice Stanley’s Midwinter makes use of previous treatments, including sources as diverse as True Detective Magazine, a research paper by Carolyn Sakowski and the colorful pronouncements of storyteller, Bobbie McMillon. All of the components are here: the Elkhorn Tavern (Charlie’s home away from home); the old slave from Tennessee who finds missing people by “conjuring” with a glass pendant on a string; the rumors about Charlie’s abuse of his young wife (she has multiple bruises and a black eye on the week prior to the murder); the bone fragments in the fireplace (could be teeth); Frankie’s escape from the Burke County jail and Frankie’s gallows ballad (confession?) — all familiar pieces of a story that has become an Appalachian folk legend.

What, then, is different? Is Midwinter merely the repetition of the same series of events that has been chronicled before? Well, not exactly! Stanley manages to surprise us by simply “rearranging” the order of some key events. Like the South American writer Julio Cartazar, who asks his readers to shift the order of chapters in some of his novels (thereby creating an entirely different story), Stanley skillfully creates a new version of the Frankie Silver legend — simply by utilizing a little imaginative manipulation.

In Stanley’s novel, Frankie Silver is an independent “bookish” young woman who reads Shelley, Keats and the Bible. Although Charlie Silver is a doting husband, he is also the product of a culture that stresses the subservient role of wives (Frankie’s books infuriate him). Now, add some interfering in-laws (Frankie’s mother is mentally ill and despises her son-in-law). The final ingredient is jealousy (a young lawyer named Woodfin who adores Frankie angers Charlie and a big-bosomed Elkhorn floozie who comforts Charlie when he is feeling low produces temper tantrums in Frankie.)

Although Midwinter moves toward its tragic conclusion with a kind of predestined certainty, there are some notable variations. Stanley builds a credible explanation for Charlie’s murder: Frankie acts in self-defense since she believes that Charlie intends to shoot her. (She misinterprets his behavior when, after seeing a wolf near his barn, he rushes into the house and loads his gun.) In addition, the author expands the oft-repeated suspicions regarding Frankie’s “accomplices” (the belief that Charlie’s dismemberment and cremation was carried out by Frankie’s mother and brother). This “variation” acquires additional pathos when Stanley presents a scene in which Frankie’s brother, Blackstone, is haunted by a memory: Having left Frankie at home, her mother and brother, go to Charlie’s cabin to “make Charlie’s corpse disappear.” Charlie is still alive — but not for long.

Midwinter also presents an explanation for Frankie’s strange behavior during the interval between the murder and her execution. Stanley presents Frankie as a young woman in a near-catatonic state, haunted by nightmares, and tormented by guilt. She does nothing to avoid her fate because she feels it is deserved. When she reaches the gallows, she reads her “Sonnet for Charlie” and willingly accepts the noose.

Note: Maurice Stanley is also the author of The Legend of Nance Dude — a tale of another guilt-ridden mountain woman, trapped in a place and a culture that made her a killer. His response to the tragedy and suffering inherent in the Frankie Silver ordeal resembles an observation made by W. M. Thackeray at the conclusion of Barry Lyndon. Thackeray notes that all of the grief and pain in his story occurred “a long time ago” and all of his characters are dead and gone. Their guilt or innocence is now irrelevant.

Back in the days when WCU was WCTC (Western Carolina Teachers’ College), I was one of a few kids that hung around “the little theatre” with Mabel Crum, the Chair of the English Department (circa 1950’s). In the absence of a “professional director,” Mabel (we never called her “Dr. Crum” when we talked about her) volunteered for the job and immediately announced an impressive schedule of productions.

Nothing daunted Mabel; she was perfectly willing to take on Shakespeare (“A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream”) Arthur Miller (“The Crucible”) and Sophocles (“Oedipus Rex”). We had a great time. It didn’t matter that we were mostly mountain kids with pronounced nasal twangs. After all, the audience was mostly our peers and no one seemed to notice ... Well, except for the Dr. Hayes, a recently-arrived Rhodes scholar, who stood during the intermission of “A Merchant of Venice” and announced, “Sounds as though the Avon has mingled with the Tuckaseigee.” (Mabel had to explain to the cast that Dr. Hayes was talking about our dialect.)

There were other embarrassing incidents, of course. When I did Tieresias, the blind prophet wrapped in a bed sheet, my eyes taped shut and blacked out with shoe polish (Mabel’s idea), the audience laughed the first night when I delivered all of my lines to back wall. The Western Carolinian mistakenly reported that the current production at the Little Theatre was “Oedipus Wrecks.” Mabel was philosophical about that. “Well, he does, you know ... wreck, I mean.”

And so we bungled on. In “The Crucible,” the half-crazed minister, Rev. Hale, rushed on stage and managed to loudly mispronounced a crucial word, substituting “crouch” for “crops,” as in “the stench of burning crouch hangs everywhere.” In “Sabrina Fair,” the lighted ships that sailed serenely across the bay (on a painted backdrop with movable vessels) began to fall, fluttering to the floor like fat fireflies during Sabrina’s love scene. In “Twelfth Night,” Sir Toby Belch rushed on stage five scenes before his appointed entrance to discover that he was among strangers. After delivering a few lines he bowed and announced, “I will have more to say about this later!” and promptly departed. I envied him his skillful recovery. We sped recklessly on through “Bus Stop,” “The Rainmaker” and “Antigone,” never dreaming that our unbridled fun was about to come to an end.

When, Josefina Niggli arrived, Mabel called a meeting in the WCU “Little Theatre,” and told her little rustic band of thespians that “theatre” was about to become a serious affair. While Mabel struggled through the highlights of Josefina’s astonishing career prior to coming to Cullowhee (two Book-of-the-Month Club novels, an illustrious career in Hollywood, movie and television scripts, etc.), we looked at the large woman who sat like a sleepy Cheshire cat down stage center in an ornate chair (from “Sabrina Fair”) and staring at us (we were in the audience, of course). She was alternating sips of coffee with puffs from a cigarette.

When she finally spoke in a deep Tahullah Bankhead contralto, she said, “Darlings, I’m so gratified to see you.”

We were charmed in the true meaning of that word. We sat like a hapless flock of birds, mouths agape, gawking at this feline woman who spoke in a voice that both whispered and thundered. She talked about her life in Mexico, told anecdotes of famous movie stars (she called Henry Fonda “Hank” and Lawrence Oliver “Larry”). Although we immediately became Niggli disciples, it soon became obvious that our feelings were not reciprocal.

All of us gamely registered for Acting 101 and found ourselves reading nursery rhymes aloud on the stage while Ms. Niggli drank coffee from a thermos and occasionally said, “Read it again, dear. This time pronounce ALL of the syllables.” At the end of the class, she smiled serenely and said, “Darlings, when you speak, I positively shudder.”

She then delivered a long diatribe on how communication was essential to get on in the world, and we appeared to be unable to do so. “How can you teach or work in any jobs that require communication?” When we ventured to ask about the next play, she said, “Darlings, you are a long way from being in any play that I would direct.” Then, she rose and floated slowly up the aisle, leaving us alone on a brightly lighted stage.

Students began to drop out of Acting 101, muttering that the fun seemed to have gone out of theatre. A stalwart handful persisted because they thought that perhaps Ms. Niggli was merely weeding out the “undesirables.” Eventually, Ms. Niggli directed “My Three Angels,” but ended up casting the primary roles from the English Department faculty. Many of us were banished from the theatre (I was among them), and we found ourselves reading one-acts and practicing diction. Ms. Niggli announced her resignation, saying that she found the challenge of molding us into thespians “too daunting.”

When we returned the following semester, a bright-eyed UNC graduate named Charles Barrett sat at the “Speech and Drama” table at registration. “Call me Chuck,” he said. The rumor spread that he had spent the summer as “Sir Walter Raleigh” in the outdoor drama, “Lost Colony.” He announced that he would be doing “Inherit The Wind,” and although the play had a large cast, the two major leads would be “experienced adults.” That meant the roles of Henry Drummond (Clarence Darrow) and Matthew Harrison Brady (William Jennings Bryant) would be played by “Chuck” and a retired insurance salesman who lived off campus. The rest of us would have to be content with character roles and mob scenes.

I was in the Townhouse when I heard that Ms. Niggli was back. “That’s correct,” said Dr. Crum, “She arrived back on campus last night from Baylor. Said she would be content to teach Basic Speech 201 and Fundamentals of Grammar 101.” I got the definite impression that Mabel was as surprised as I was by the return of the Cheshire cat, but she noted that “considering her experience with theatre and film, we are lucky to have her.”

Poor Chuck. He was just beginning a career and had bought a house. He had cast “The Glass Menagerie,” and had a full teaching load ... but he was sharing the theatre with Ms. Niggli, who had decided to teach her classes there. Frequently, when he was directing students, he would turn to see Ms. Niggli, sitting silently in the darkness watching him. At first, he attempted to solicit Ms. Niggli’s opinion.

“Don’t you agree, Ms. Niggli?” he would chirrup, referring to a stage movement or a line interpretation he had just given a student.

“Chuck, darling, you are the director,” she would say and lapse into silence.

After Chuck resigned (he once said that sharing the theatre with Ms. Niggli was like living too close to the sun) and fled to Raleigh and a government job that required him to produce educational films for the state highway department, Ms. Niggli graciously agreed to once more become the head of the Speech and Theatre Department. She quietly moved into the vacant office and began directing again. In a few years, she became the campus celebrity and hundreds of students rushed to enroll in her classes. She often “held court” in her homes in the evenings where she sat in a great upholstered chair while the “Nigglites” sat on the floor around her, enraptured by her stories of James Dean, John Garfield and “Monty” Clift.

Many years later, when I returned to WCU to work on my masters, I dropped by Ms. Niggli’s office. By this time, she was something of a legend and a dozen students attended her every whim. Finding that we were alone for a few moments, I couldn’t resist broaching a question that had troubled me for years.

“Why did you come back?” I said. She laughed and said, “You mean when I renounced you all and fled to Baylor?” She drank her coffee and looked at me as though she were deciding just how much truth she wanted to tell.

“When I got to Baylor, I found a large theatre department filled with notables. They had playwrights and novelists that were far more significant than I! I was not ... unique. That is it, darling. I wanted to be honored and pampered, so I came back to this mountain college and all of these nasal twangs.”

So, there you have it. I guess I was a “Nigglite,” too, and I also sat on Josefina’s carpet, sipping coffee while I listened, enthralled by a magic world through which this remarkable woman moved with ease. She had known Thomas Wolfe, Paul Green and Tyrone Power! But yet, I will always remember Dr. Crum and the wonderful world of drama that existed “before Niggli.” When I grow sentimental about the past, it is usually for that innocent time when my heart quickened and I felt a pure joy at discovering something wonderful on a brightly lighted stage ... before it all became ... serious.

(Gary Carden is a writer and storyteller who lives in Sylva. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

2666 by Roberto Bolano. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. 898 pages

Dear reader, it seems altogether fitting to begin the New Year with a review of the novel that is being hailed as “the book of the century.” Now, before you get cynical on me and dismiss such accolades as typical promotional blather, let me hasten to add that this is an international judgment. Here is a sampling: “A masterpiece,” says Le Magazine Litteraire (Paris); “An often shocking and raunchy tour de force,” says The New York Review of Books; “A cornerstone that defines an entire literature,” says La Vanguardia (Spain); “A world of a novel in which the power of words triumphs over savagery,” proclaims L’ Express magazine (France). The reviews from Italy, Chile (Bolano’s birthplace), England and Germany are equally enthusiastic.

The critical response to 2666 seems excessive. Certainly, no major work has been greeted with such enthusiasm since some 40 years ago when Gabriel Garcia Marquez published One Hundred Years of Solitude. In fact, one major critic noted that if Marquez laid the cornerstone of literary excellence, then Bolano has “shifted that cornerstone.” Essays are cropping up that compare Bolano to Jorge Luis Borges, the acknowledged master of South American literature and a number of American magazines are already publishing lengthy articles that evaluate the significance of Bolano’s “magnum opus.” One of the most impressive is Francine Prose’s “More is More” in Harper’s this month.

However, there are dissenters. A handful of critics found the 2666 either “chaotic” or “bleak and depressing.” Even some of the novel’s strongest advocates found the writing “ugly,” (Adam Kirch in Slate magazine) but defended the repugnant aspects as “a new an unexpected kind of beauty.” Critics are at a loss for comparisons. One critic notes that 2666 resembles the eerie, surreal atmosphere of a David Lynch movie. Another rhapsodizes about apocalyptic themes. The words “daring” and “courageous” appear in the majority of the reviews. Finally, the most appropriate critique calls the novel “a leap into the darkness,” because the author has broken all the rules of current fiction and established new ones.

2666 consists of five sections (novels?) that appear to be unrelated to each other. However, in the final section, the reader discovers that the five divisions are like “five planets orbiting the same dark sun.” Suddenly, the pieces effortlessly unite like an interlocking jigsaw puzzle.

Section One, “The Part About the Critics,” deals with a quartet of academic critics (Italian, French, Spanish and English) who devote their lives to tracking down an elusive writer who may be a candidate for the Nobel Prize. As they globetrot from city to city, they bicker, drink and fornicate with abandon (three males and one female). They finally end up in Saint Teresa (Ciudad Juarez), Mexico.

Section Two, “The Part About Amalefitano” concerns a mentally unstable professor at the University of Saint Teresa and his daughter. The professor lives in a constant state of dread because he suspects (imagines) some evil is imminent and his daughter is in danger. As it turns out, Amalefitano’s fears are well founded.

Section Three, “The Part About Fate,” deals with an Afro-American journalist who travels to Saint Teresa to cover a boxing match and ends up accompanying other journalists to a prison to interview a serial murderer.

Section Four, “The Part About the Crimes,” provides a disturbing history of the unsolved murders of female factory workers in Saint Teresa. (The style in this section resembles crime fiction and is based on the hundreds (perhaps over a thousand) of rape/murders around the maquiladoras (NAFTA plants) in Ciudad Juarez.

Section Five, “The Part about Archimboldi” chronicles the life of a German writer who survives WWII, changes his name to Benno von Archimboldi and writes a series of novels that attract national attention. However, he avoids publicity and refuses interviews. Then, a series of personal dilemmas brings him to Saint Teresa, “the city of paper houses” (cardboard slums).

It is impossible to discuss the plot of 2666 since its complexities would require extensive explanations. Suffice it to say that it is a frustrating, bewildering and, at times, an exhilarating work. Dozens of characters, including prophets, corrupt policemen, tormented lovers and psychopaths appear only to vanish and never return. Bolano shifts genres, veering for science fiction, to crime novel to “magic realism,” to erotica to folk tale and myth. Eventually, it becomes evident that the author purposely creates unstructured and meaningless action because he perceives life to have those same qualities (unstructured and meaningless).

Certainly, one of the most perplexing questions is the significance of the title. Is 2666 the future date in which the world will be reduced to sterile waste? Is that why this novel contains several thinly veiled references to the William Butler Yeats poem, “The Second Coming,” and the approach of the final Apocalypse? (“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”)

Note: Robert Bolano died of liver failure in 2003 at the age of 50. However, aware of his impending death, he spent the last three months of his life preparing 2666 for publication. The final translation and publication has been an arduous, complex process. 2666 finally arrived in the United States about six months ago.

(Gary Carden is a writer, storyteller and lecturer whose book, Mason Jars in the Flood, was named Book of the Year by the Appalachian Writers Association. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

The Sweetest Sounds

The sweetest sounds I’ll ever hear

Are still inside my head.

The kindest words I’ll ever know

Are waiting to be said.

— Rogers and Hart

Over the past 40 years, as my hearing has steadily declined, most of my friends became accustomed to my evasive behavior. Instead of saying, “I can’t hear you,” I developed a habit of nodding, smiling and saying, “Yes.”

Chemistry and Other Stories by Ron Rash. Picador, 2007. 230 pages

This remarkable collection of short stories has already been named one of the 15 “notable books” of 2007 by the Story Prize Committee — an award that is presented annually in recognition of the nation’s best. The top award, $20,000, is the largest literary prize in America. In announcing their selection, the contest officials stated “The Appalachian Mountains are the setting of this beautifully crafted collection that begins and ends with a fish and spans several generations in an isolated region with characters as craggy as the landscape.”

When winter comes now, and I see those familiar pale shafts of sunlight that briefly touch the tops of the Balsams — just before total darkness settles on Rhodes Cove — I find myself remembering a trip to see my great grandmother some 60 years ago.

The Christmas Curmudgeon is available at: Barnes &Noble.com, the Western Carolina Internet Café in Dillsboro, or directly from the author at James Cox, P. O. Box 272, Whittier, NC, 28789. Send check ($14.95 plus postage) and your name and address.

Hark! Do you hear it? It is the faint drum rolls of “The Little Drummer Boy.” Rumma-Tum-Tum, and it is growing nearer every day. Yes, the “Holiday Season” is coming. In another week, the malls will be packed, the traffic will gridlock and our TVs will resound with hearty enticements to max out our credit cards.

In 1991, 30-year veteran and master teacher John Taylor Gatto resigned immediately after being named “Teacher of the Year” in New York. A number of educators and concerned parents took note — especially after the disillusioned teacher’s reasons for resigning appeared in the Wall Street Journal, under the caption, “I Quit, I Think.”

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill. William Morrow, 2007. 376 pages

Although both the publisher and the author of Heart-Shaped Box seem reluctant to admit that Joe Hill is actually the son of Stephen King, there is ample evidence to support this conclusion.