Come West and See: Stories

Book excerpt: An NPR Best Book of 2018 "Devastating.…Grows increasingly bizarre and haunting until it’s left an indelible mark." —Janet Maslin, New York Times In an isolated region of Idaho, Montana, and eastern Oregon, an armed occupation of a wildlife refuge escalates into civil war. Against this backdrop, Maxim Loskutoff shatters the myths of the West: a lonesome trapper falls in love with a bear; a newly married woman hatches a plot to murder a tree; and an unemployed millworker joins a militia after returning home. Written with “blade-sharp prose” (Electric Literature), the twelve stories in this debut collection expose the simmering rage and resentments of small-town America “with extraordinary eloquence and compassion” (National Book Review).