A group of housewives smoke cigars and play cards whilst a tornado approaches a west Texas town. An Asian-American medic bicycles through the Vietnam countryside with her husband and son and returns to the spot where she once held dying soldiers. Or a young rockabilly aficionado prepares for a date in a Ukranian village close to Chenobyl. The words of Beatles songs sung in a Cambodian work camp. Cullin's ability is to miraculously create moments of true pathos which distill important human experience into a single hair-raising image. I can honestly say they are the best stories I have ever read, they are chillingly good and I have utter conviction that this is a great writer.
From the Place in the Valley Deep in the Forest
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
*Starred Review* After four novels, including the intriguing novel-in-verse Branches (2000) and the bittersweet Cosmology of Bing [BKL F 15 01], Cullin rounds up eight short stories. They demonstrate that he is more than a canny new regionalist. Only three share the West Texas setting of his novels, and they hardly overshadow the others, set in Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Ukraine, and Alaska, respectively. Three of those tackle big public themes--American reconciliation with Vietnam, the killing fields of the Pol Pot regime, and the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster--and another deals with the lesser-known but news-generating matter of Alaskan Indian tribes punishing their own public offenders rather than letting them be imprisoned. Cullin completely avoids making essays of his stories by focusing on vividly realized characters caught in the middle of those circumstances: a boy, now 16, who lived near Chernobyl when small; another teen, arrested for a brutal assault and robbery in Anchorage; a Cambodian girl in an agricultural labor camp with her aunt and uncle; and married 'Nam vets bicycling through old combat zones with their 19-year-old son. If something of the experimentalist shows in Cullin's novels, his stories are old-fashioned in the best sense, reporting slices of life as the characters experience them in language that is economical yet richly evocative because of its precision. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Review
"Every time he focuses on the one character who can best tell of a larger tragedy. He finds the perfect narrator... brave, highly imagined fiction writing." - TODD MCEWEN THE GUARDIAN
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
small moments on a big planet,
This review is from: From the Place in the Valley Deep in the Forest (Paperback)
An excellent collection, with exceptionally vivid characters. Not all of the stories struck me with the same weight, but the ones that did--"Voice Of The Sun," "Wormwood," "Viv's Bidding," "Totem"--are among the best short fiction I've read in a long while. Lesser pieces like "Sifting Through" and the title story are still better than most, though they seemed somewhat brisk in their presentation. A minor qualm, and one that may have gone unnoticed if it weren't for the quality, length, and richness of the other stories. A highly recommended debut of short fiction.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Around the world in 8 stories,
By Patty K. (NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: From the Place in the Valley Deep in the Forest (Paperback)
An incredibly written, insightful, flat-out great collection of stories. Loved the shift of regions and locales, but it's the strong characters that move these stories along. The ending story about the Alaskan boy just concluded the whole thing beautifully. 2002 has just begun, but this one will probably remain high up on my list.
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