Author of Talk to Me, James Dean and Cold Deck, H. Lee Barnes is an eloquent ambassador for the contemporary American West. In these twelve moving stories, Barnes delves deep into the wild, expansive places of the region and of the human heart that are slowly coming to rein. With gorgeously distilled prose, Barnes writes of vastness and distance, of the separate, small inches and whole histories that occupy equal measures of the western spirit.
Each of the stories in Life Is a Country Western Song reveals a character longing to close a gap, or who, for better and for worse, have come to terms with their estrangement and exile. A divorcee rekindles a doomed romance over the internet; a locksmith absorbs broken dreams in foreclosed homes; a boy learns how to love and hate in Juarez, Mexico; because he has no one else, a Nevada Patrolman confides his marital troubles in a dog.
Wrought with empathy, precision and a steady finger on the pulse of the complexities facing today's changing, often turbulent West, Barnes's stories show a writer at the apex of his craft, offering an updated take on a West that is rapidly descending into the annals of legend.
By:
H. Lee Barnes
Imprint: Baobab Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 215mm,
Width: 139mm,
ISBN: 9781936097203
ISBN 10: 1936097206
Pages: 176
Publication Date: 21 May 2019
Recommended Age: From 13 years
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
,br> Life Is a Country Western Song - finalist Narrative open story competition, 2016 Sheets - Just to Watch Him Die Anthology, Virginia Avenue Press, 2012 Double Irish The Boy Who Smelled Color - Red Rock Review, Spring 2015 The Day Nixon Was Impeached A Fine Open Space - Iron Horse Review, Trifecta, 2014 In the End - Red Rock Review, Fall 2016 Disassembled Parts - The Nevada Review, Fall 2012 Tolerance The Road to Mandalay Without Laughter - The McGuffin, Special Edition 2000 Divas - The Nevada Review, Fall 2013 A Cop Story - Red Rock Review , Fall 2017
H. Lee Barnes is an award-winning short-story writer and author of three previous novels, three short-story collections, and two nonfiction books. He was inducted into the Nevada Writer's Hall of Fame in 2009, and in 2013 he received an award for excellence in the arts from the Vietnam Veterans of America for his writings on Vietnam. Barnes teaches English and creative writing at the College of Southern Nevada.
- Winner of Arizona Authors Association Fiction Prize (United States).
- Winner of Willamette Fiction Award (United States).
