Controlled Burn: Stories of Prison, Crime, and Men

ISBN: 0743260112

Author: Wolven, Scott

Condition: Used

From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. To say that these beautifully written, deceptively simple stories are loosely connected is to miss a large part of the point. The collection, divided into two geographical sections ("The Northeast Kingdom" and "The Fugitive West"), begins with a man trapped into becoming a drug informant; it ends with another man getting the same treatment from the authorities. All the stories, including three that have been published in recent Best American Mystery Stories anthologies, share certain themes: life in prison; a fascination with guns and violence, even among men who aren't career criminals; the despair of working-class life, especially in jobs on the fringes of economically depressed areas. A man on a prison farm buries the bodies of dead convicts while a deer caught on an electric fence burns in the background. A gang of Hispanic fighters descends from Canada to challenge workers at a logging camp in bloody battles. Wolven's prose is as cold and sharp as an ice crystal: "If I'm not here day after tomorrow," a sheriff tells the narrator of "Atomic Supernova," "you go ahead and kill Bob Burke and we'll figure it all out later." Wolven's not as romantic or sympathetic as Hemingway, but it's hard to think that Papa wouldn't appreciate his artistry and imagination.Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Product DescriptionA collection of interlinked short tales about the lives of convicts, informers, and on-the-run criminals includes "Outside Work Detail," in which men dig graves for fellow convicts; "Crank," in which a proselytizing addict brews crystal meth in a backwoods lab; and "Atomic Supernova," in which an obsessed sheriff deputizes a cop killer. 25,000 first printing.From the Inside Flap"Wolven has turned raw, unreconciled life into startling, evocative, and very good short stories. He draws on a New England different from Updikes and even Dubus, but his fictive lives--no less than theirs--render the world newly, and full of important consequence." -- Richard Ford"Dazzling and disturbing . . . white-hot prose . . . extraordinary. A debut to treasure, a remarkably assured cycle of stories." --Kirkus Reviews"Scott Wolven's stories are torn road maps leading into an adrenalin-fueled land of the lost. Ever since I first read 'The Copper Kings,' an early story, I've been addicted to his fierce insights and fascinated by the way a strange sweetness underpins the violent macho trappings of his beyond-the-law, hard-case men on the run." -- Michele Slung, editor of Stranger and I Shudder at Your Touch"Controlled Burn is good. Very good. Remarkable, actually. Tough, gritty, and honest--reminiscent of Hemingway with a little bit of John Steinbeck. Scott Wolven writes about an America that few of us have ever seen--and he writes about it from first-hand experience." -- Nelson DeMille"It has been at least a few years since a story collection gripped me from first to last. The drought has ended, and now I will read this book again. The wisdom, love, and depravity of convicts, boxers, cranksters, loggers, and drunks fill the stove of this fine book so that long after you finish the last story, Scott Wolven's savage and lovely characters and crystalline prose will burn through your heart." -- Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead"Scott Wolven's tales are tough, unsentimental, and completely earned. This is the most exciting, authentic collection of short stories I have read in years." --George PelecanosAbout the AuthorScott Wolven lives in upstate New York. His work has been selected three years in a row for The Best American Mystery Stories (2002, 2003, and 2004).