Grace Stone Coates: Honey Wine and Hunger Root by Lee Rostad

Abstract

Reviews 361 they present lives shaped by landscape, lives in which the past continues to exist in the present, lives which are connected to other lives. And so they're more than just California stories, more than just western stories, more even than just American stories. The best of them achieve the universality we ask of the finest fiction. Because these fourteen stories are so good, and so varied, each reader is apt to argue for a different favorite, or group of favorites. I'll argue for "That Constant Coyote," in which Haslam blends perfectly those relationships among landscape, past, and human lives. Indeed, "That Constant Coyote" is perhaps the best western short story I've ever read. Other readers might prefer the title story, "Snapshots," another magical realist piece, in which Haslam gives us an aging woman who talks with--and is answered by-the pictures in her photo album. In the story's few pages we learn more of her life than many writers could tell us in a novel. Still others will prefer "Crossing the Valley," which shows us an old man falling into dotage and finally death, but in a way which makes clear that a good life, or even a good moment, is not lost. (This is certainly one of Haslam's major themes throughout the collection . ) Snapshots is simply a splendid collection of western stories, the best yet by a fine writer. Devil Mountain Press has given these stories the production they deserve, so that the book looks as good as it reads. And read it you should, as soon as possible. WAYNE UDE Mankato State University Grace Stone Coates: Honey Wine and Hunger Root. By Lee Rostad. (Helena and Billings, Montana: Falcon Press Publishing, 1985. 106 pages, $14.95.) A sort of biography, Honey Wine and Hunger Root is the story of a Montana teacher and writer, told with brief biographical sketches by Rostad, but mostly composed of the verses and prose of Coates herself. Coates can be witty: to a reader who mistook a graceful young tennis player for Coates, she writes, "Cherish your dreams I I waddle when I walk." And she can be passionate : "life in me was furious brew I You sipped, till you were drunk with wine, I And I was drunk with life and you." She is best when she is toughest, when she looks without sentimentality at, especially, relationships between men ~nd women: "The years go OIl; and both of them are willing I To drift along lIke any man and wife; I He hides away his private corpse by killing; I She daily galvanizes hers to life." Although much of her style seems out of fashion now--her verses are filled with rhymes and inverted syntax ("0 heedless pebble on the mountain trail, I Hold firm, hold firm, my lover's step sustainlng ! I In darkness, confident, he leaves the vale, I Before the sun the distant Summit gaining.") ---a lively sense of Coates' personality does come across. I 362 Western American Litemture find the format rather puzzling, however; Rostad groups poems and prose pieces chronologically under sections on Coates' childhood, her marriage, her life in Martinsdale, etc., never discussing why these works are so placed, not acknowledging that they may be fictions. Scattered throughout are a number of photographs, mostly unlabelled. Rostad says in her introductory note that "Whenever possible, I have tried to have Grace tell her own story in her verse and prose-she wrote so much better than 1." I wonder then that she did not edit a more standard edition of selected works, with a more standard introduction. NANCY PROTHRO ARBUTHNOT U. S. Naval Academy Super Bull and Other True Escapades. By Max Evans. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986. 187 pages, $16.95.) In his introduction to Super Bull, Charles Champlin describes Evans' collection as "non-fiction pieces," but it reads more like folklore-folklore in the sense that it is appropriate for repeating across the campfire, is dominated by stereotypical characters, and attempts to contribute new legends to the Old West of the good ole boys. Evans narrates hunting stories about missing shots and bagging the limit...