Drinking Dry Clouds: Stories From Wyoming [Paperback]

Gretel Ehrlich (Author, Afterword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2005

Drinking Dry Clouds is Gretel Ehrlich's storytelling in full swing. This inspired collection opens during World War II with the stories of cowboys, waitresses, and bartenders along with Japanese Americans interned at Wyoming’s Heart Mountain. Many of these characters were introduced in Ehrlich’s novel Heart Mountain. As she explains, “When I returned to my characters, five years after their initial appearance in my life, they seemed to want to report to me, so I let them speak in the first person.”

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ehrlich's skilled collection of 14 short stories complements her novel Heart Mountain but can be read independently. In fact, the first four stories, comprising slightly more than half of this volume, duplicate material from the novel, which is set in a WW II Japanese-American internment camp and a nearby Wyoming ranching community. Most of the new material comes in the second part, "After the War." These latter stories are interwoven, yet they place in the foreground different characters, all of whom are isolated in their own way. Henry is a former prisoner of war in Japan who returns home and has difficulty making the transition from surviving to living. Pinkey, a ranch hand who raised hell during his life, continues to do so after it ends--apparently, even death can't keep a good man down. "Kai's Mother" follows a Japanese woman who knows it is up to her alone to make a new life for herself and her elderly husband after four years in the camp; yet she remembers even more severe hardships from her childhood in "old Japan." And Velma Vermeer, the town's telephone operator, recalls how her whirlwind shipboard romance and marriage were tainted by tragedy from their very beginning.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Set in Wyoming around World War II, these spare, "palm-in-the-hand" stories are eloquent character sketches linked by geography and time. The cowboys, drifters, and interned Japanese Americans first encountered in Ehrlich's novel Heart Mountain (10/1/88) are here revisited, painted in vivid language. Caught in a beautiful but desolate landscape, they reveal the private dimensions of their lives: their heartbreaks, their acceptances, and, finally, their humanity. Each portrait, narrated in the first person, is both delicate, sturdy, and skillful. Recommended for short story collections.
- Linda L. Rome, Mentor, Ohio
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Bison Books (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803267541
• ISBN-13: 978-0803267541
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #749,016 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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