Most of these stories are set in the western part of Nevada, a desert landscape among people as limited and thorny as desert shrubs, with emotional lacunae as vast as the skies above them. ( )

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Originally posted on ars shatomica.

“A flag that bears the name…battle born.”

In 2012, The Killers introduced me to the state motto of Nevada: Battle Born. Turns out that Nevada took this name after achieving statehood during the Civil War. It’s also a very fitting name for the title of Claire Vaye Watkins’ first book, a collection of short stories that take place in various places around Nevada and the Mojave Desert. It is, by far, one of my new favorite books.

The first story (“Ghosts, Cowboys”) in this collection hits the ground running with a story about the daughter of Charles Manson’s right-hand man. A quick Google search reveals that this is actually true–Claire is the daughter of Paul Watkins, Manson’s adviser and eventually testified against Manson. It appears that the story is a fictional take on her background. It’s a very good short story, so if anything, read “Ghosts, Cowboys.”

My favorite of this anthology was “The past perfect, the past continuous, the simple past.” It’s about a young man traveling abroad in the US who gets separated from his traveling companion and ends up at a brothel in the middle of nowhere Nevada. One of my favorite images from this story was the brothel owner, a gay man named Manny, taking care of his boss’ flock of peacocks. All of the peacocks are named after counties in Nevada. While CVW didn’t name this peacock in particular, I really like the idea of a peacock named Humboldt–and again, thank you Brandon Flowers for teaching me Nevada county names.

CVW writes quite evocatively. A sense of place is really apparent in this collection–Las Vegas, the Mojave, dry land, stark sunshine. Reading these stories made me feel like I was in Nevada along with the characters. ( )

I did not and could not finish this book. The rating is based on the parts I did suffer through.

Brattleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins is a collection of 10 short stories. Generally, I like short stories as they can be read in short time spans, usually offer very innovative writing and test the skill of the author in creating the story.

Battleborn received many 4 and 5 star reviews on goodreads.com. It has high praise from other writers and respected publications. Nevertheless, all of these were like a stranger offering candy to a child before kidnapping him. The child has been repeatedly warned and taught to refuse the candy, scream like hell, and run like the wind.
Unfortunately, I am not a child and I took the bait.
I give any book with good writing 50 pages before I turn away from it. The first 50 pages of this book included about 3 1/2 stories, none with a point, all with indecipherable and obtuse "plots," all with unlikeable characters, unlikable things, strange situations and no particular storyline. I can only offer deep-felt sympathy to a young writer with such bitter, unhappy and negative views of the world, hoping that her fiction does not reflect her own personal views of life.
After 50 pages, I had to decide what is worse: finishing this dive into depression or watching videos of Republicans saying supportive things about Trump, but “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” still leaves you damned.
I do have something positive to say: Never have I delivered a book to my trash bin with such glee, understanding once again that finishing something that you are not enjoying just because you paid real money for it only makes the wasted money a more pathetic loss.
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Manjula Martin rave