A review by margaret_adams
Half an Inch of Water by Percival Everett
A fantastic collection of short stories, grounded in the rural West with a "rumor of magic constantly on the periphery, the inexplicable that emerges from and then retreats back into the haze of the desert" (-New York Times Book Review).
Favorites: Little Faith; Stonefly; Finding Billy White Feather.
“The desert rolled like always, constant, brown, ocher, and especially red in the distance. The pressure of people, the efforts of people had killed off much of the life, but none of the desert. His mother had said it: you can kill everything, you can tear it all up and build, you can pipe water to it, but the desert is the desert, more desert every day. It unfolded itself before him as he crested the ridge and started down the big curve of the highway that would take him to the road to his place. The late-morning sun was still behind him, but the shadows of the sage were beginning to shorten.”
Favorites: Little Faith; Stonefly; Finding Billy White Feather.
“The desert rolled like always, constant, brown, ocher, and especially red in the distance. The pressure of people, the efforts of people had killed off much of the life, but none of the desert. His mother had said it: you can kill everything, you can tear it all up and build, you can pipe water to it, but the desert is the desert, more desert every day. It unfolded itself before him as he crested the ridge and started down the big curve of the highway that would take him to the road to his place. The late-morning sun was still behind him, but the shadows of the sage were beginning to shorten.”