Refresh, Refresh: Stories | Benjamin Percy | The Dark Heart of the Northwest

Refresh, Refresh: Stories | Benjamin Percy | Fasten your seatbelts

books:

Refresh, Refresh: ...

	Refresh, Refresh: Stories Benjamin Percy Graywolf Press, 2007 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

The war in Iraq empties the small town of Tumalo, Oregon, of men?of fathers?leaving their sons to fight among themselves. But the boys? bravado fades at home when, alone, they check e-mail again and again for word from their fathers at the front.
Often from fractured homes and communities, the young men in these breathless stories do the unthinkable to prove to themselves?to everyone?that they are strong enough to face the heartbreak in this world. Set in rural Oregon with the shadow of the Cascade Mountains hanging over them, these stories bring you face-to-face with a mad bear, a house with a basement that opens up into a cave, a nuclear meltdown that renders the Pacific Northwest into a contemporary Wild West. Refresh, Refresh is a bold, fiery, and unforgettable collection that deals with vital issues of our time.

for more information click here

The Dark Heart of the Northwest

I haven't been so impressed by a newly discovered (by me, that is) writer of short stories since someone handed me a copy of The Collected Stories of Breece D'J Pancake in 1984 or so. I'm pleased to discover that this Northwestern Gothic author is alive and well, and I can look forward to more and even better work in the future. As with most collections of short stories it suffers a bit by being read "at a gulp" as I did--then you notice that he's too fond of people having "black bags" under their eyes, but that's a small flaw in an otherwise disturbing yet satisfying group of stories.

for more information click here

Fasten your seatbelts

"Refresh, Refresh" is rock'n'roll in form of short stories. It is an instant page-turner and you will be re-reading the stories more than once. The only other authors which gave me the same buzz were Stephen King, Ray Bradbury and Raymond Chandler. Percy's language is brutally honest and polished, two qualities that are hard to come by in the space needed to deliver a short story. Don't forget to get "Language of Elk" along with "Refresh, Refresh."

reason to keep on going

Anyone who grumbles that contemporary fiction is in the toilet, that short stories are dead, that the "younger generation" has not produced anything of real literary value, should shut up and read Benjamin Percy.

for more information click here

naturalistic short stories with a brutal perspective of people in existential pain

The characters who populate Benjamin Percy's short stories don't mince words about the quality of their lives. Nor do they pretend to be optimistic when their surroundings essentially depress them or bring them pain. These people, all of whom live in rather desolate circumstances, distance themselves from spouses, family and friends; most struggle to gain some coherent understanding of life, often engaging in violent acts of self-creation. Percy's collection, "Refresh, Refresh," is disturbing, provocative and compelling. At times, readers may literally turn their heads from the detailed wreckage of lives the author details, but there can be no doubt that the Percy is a talented writer. His direct style includes clean, believable dialogue and remarkably beautiful imagery.

The protagonists live in small, east-of-the-Cascades towns in rural Oregon; they wrestle with the consequences of the American involvement in the Iraq war, a cataclysm that shreds the fabric of community life, bequeathing residents with the residue of cynicism and an oppressive sense of hopelessness. The short story from which the book takes its name gives is representative of the themes Percy emphasizes throughout the collection. Two rootless teenagers, both of whose fathers have "vanished" into the maws of the American war machine, find it nearly impossible to express the anger, disappointment and frustrations they experience. Bordering on the fringe of nihilism, they prefer destruction to creation, self-effacement to self-affirmation. Their act of revenge, perfectly realized, elicits disgust, horror and a begrudged admiration.

Percy knows how to balance the disquieting realities and disconcerting personalities. Whether we find ourselves in a post-apocalyptic world, where nuclear winter has caused a quarantine of half of the United States, or wandering in the subterranean caves of the Cascade Mountains, Percy navigates the terrain with people who are embittered, enraged and often impotent to effect anything less than violent change. Each of the ten stories in the collection resonates with an honest examination of pain.

"Refresh, Refresh" is not for the squeamish. Violence and despair abound. Its naturalistic approach to human weakness and its absolute commitment to a frightening exploration of people pushed past the edge of socially-acceptable behavior make this collection an important contribution to the study of American life in the twenty-first century. We may not like the images Benjamin Percy presents, but there can be no doubt as to how steadily he holds up the mirror.

for more information click here

Short story addiction

I chose this story collection based on another writer's review. The title story lived up to that review. Percy's talent for exposing painful truths reminds me of Annie Proulx or Wallace Stegner. But ... Percy succumbs to a young writer's weakness; he has trouble letting his older characters be three dimensional. More life experience should fix that, and he'll really shine.

reviews: page 1, 2

products you might be interested in