Western Electric by Don Zancanella

Abstract

414 Western American Literature seem related to Agent Adamson’s murder investigation merely offer information about the past she and the prime suspect, Malone, have in common. Also, a few of the supporting cast— in particular, the self-sacrificing Cooney Jenkins and the too-precious gay couple who runs a local casino— are flat, stock characters. What is especially worthwhile, however, is the falconry. O ’Brien’s passion­ ate descriptions of M alone nursing an injured gyrfalcon and the numerous pages given over to descriptions of falcons in training, falcons in flight, and falcons in attack are inspiring, informative, and quite simply, fun to read. Arguably as much a book about environmental protection as murder, as much about the ancient art of falconry as land development, Brendan Prairie clearly attempts too much in too few pages. Still, Dan O’Brien tells a good yarn, his love o f wild America is contagious, and his knowledge o f birds o f prey is captivating. R o b e r t H e a d l e y I ' S o u t h e r n S ta te C o m m u n it y C o l l e g e , O h io V Western Electric. By Don Zancanella. (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996. 127 pages, $19.95.) Seven of the eight stories in Western Electric, the University of Iow a’s 1996 John Simmons Short Fiction Award volum e, first appeared in Prairie Schooner, Alaska Quarterly Review, Wind, and other high-quality literary journals. As for the University of Iowa Press, it has a long history of publishing short-story col­ lections by little-known writers. One needs to be thankful for literary journals and university presses. W hat’s so special about Zancanella’s tales of W yoming and Montana? Pluses include solid characterization, a strong sense of place, a subdued sense of humor, and plots with consequences for both the characters and the reader. “R efugees,” a story not previously published, is the most disturbing tale in Western Electric. W idowed ranch w ife Martha decides to bring isolationist W yoming in sync with the new multicultural America by giving the fam ily land to Laotian refugees. Ostensibly a fem inist in the wilderness and the tale’s hero­ ine, Martha com es off as both prideful and vindictive in her generosity. What drives Martha’s actions is resentment of her late Mormon husband and his 1950s world outlook. Things go badly for the refugees. The effect of technology on isolated communities is a recurring theme in Western Electric. Martha, for one, got her idea from a TV news magazine. In “Thomas Edison by M oonlight,” a W yoming teenager’s life is transformed when he w itnesses the great inventor levitate into the night sky: a touch of fantasy in an otherwise realistic tale. “Cynthia R ising,” in turn, proves itself a wonderful tale of a sm all-town Montana waitress, amateur astronomer, and budding eccen­ tric who finds her adult self during a solar eclipse. Other stories involve m issile Reviews 415 silos and loneliness, errant television signals and benign craziness, long-distance telephone lines and old-tim e religion, plus a low-tech tale of the first two chim­ panzees in W yoming Territory. Western E lectric calls to mind the best elements of two vastly different sin­ gle-author story collections. One is Lambing Out by Montana realist Mary Clearman (Blew ), published in 1977 by the University of M issouri Press. The other is Wyoming Sun by science fiction writer Ed Bryant, published in 1980 by Laramie’s Jelm Mountain Press. Zancanella finds him self in good company. J a m e s B. H e m e s a t h C o l o r a d o S p r in g s , C o l o r a d o U"' M edieval in LA: A Fiction. By Jim Paul. (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint Press, 1996. 224 pages, $20.00.) Gore Vidal’s Myra Breckinridge, never one to fear generalizing, says, “Gentlemen, the desire and the pursuit o f the whole ends at Santa...