Rock Springs: Stories [B0359]

1988 PB 1st Vintage Contemporaries edition. In these ten stories, Ford mines literary gold from the wind-scrubbed landscape of the American West--and from the guarded hopes and gnawing loneliness of the people who live there. Rock Springs is a masterpiece of taut narration, cleanly chiseled prose, and empathy so generous that it feels like a kind of grace. "Beautifully imagined and crafted stories, by turns heartrending and wickedly funny; and just plain wicked. Richard Ford is a born storyteller with an inimitable lyric voice, and Rock Springs is the very poetry of realism."--Joyce Carol Oates.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "I really enjoyed it. Reminded me that short stories can be very impactful despite their length. All of them are quite well written, and it was a pleasure to read stories mostly about wide open spaces, places that feel quite far away from me at the moment."; "This stunning assortment of ten short stories that probe deep into the human condition, is set against the rugged backdrop of Montana and the American West. The stories encapsulate a sense of place that is as unforgiving as it is beautiful. The prose is taut yet evocative, and the deeply human characters are drawn with a sharp, empathetic precision that makes them linger in the mind long after the last page."; "A really excellent collection of western vignettes."