A linked story collection centered on a rural community evicerated by economic collapse and steeped in a bigoted and unforgiving religion. From orphaned children to burned-out dreamers to conversion camp survivors, these stories reveal the desperate hope of people in a place where hope is a hard weight to carry.
Bales’s accomplished debut collection presents a standout portrait of small-town life in a straightforward, occasionally lyric style as it lays bare, in interconnected stories, Pekolah, Oklahoma, a world of trout rivers, church sanctuaries, and a pervading sense of decay. Within this setting, Bales achieves a range of subjects, themes, and approaches, not shying away from dialect or creative risks. The first story, “Fair Enough,” explores the limits of morality in a stagnant town: Ruth and Kendal are lovers who face harassment and opposition. “A Hard Thing But True,” a tale of murder that pairs with “The Gods of Men,” unstintingly considers masculinity, and rhyming, lyric prose distinguishes “At the Fourth of July Potluck,” which contrasts gay and straight sexuality and its effects on women.The varied approach offers surprises, like ‘A School Gunman’s Letter…,’ composed entirely of hymn titles and the lyrical, almost surrealist ‘“Bunny Town, USA,” though even there these lives, backgrounded by NCIS and George Strait posters, are delineated with sensitivity and convincing detail–but also without illusions or sentimentality. On issues of politics and culture, Pekolah Stories is serious and surefooted, interrogating the complex intersection of far-right politics and Christianity, and other dynamics shaping small-town life.
Conviction makes murder righteous in the wrenching “The Gods of Men,” and death-writ-large is recurring theme throughout: “It’s a helluva thing, dying like that,” one narrator muses. “ Made me understand why Dad ate his gun.” Bales likewise proves adept at examining gender and sexuality, presented with satirical bite in “At the 4th of July Potluck the Year She Moves Back Home,” but also with deadly seriousness in stories touching on the institutional violence of police stops and conversion centers. Bales’s prose illuminates larger systems of belief without losing its earthiness, its connection to everyday characters and events. Readers of literary fiction and clear-eyed portraiture of American lives will do well to seize these bruising, finely wrought stories.
Takeaway: Bracing, clear-eyed stories of small-town America, alive with memorable detail and insight.
Great for fans of: Lynn Lauber, Melissa Faliveno’s Tomboyland.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: B
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: B+
"No story is too small, and no character is seen as undeserving of having their story told. The writing style is conversational and evocative of stories that might be told at the local bar while still being excellently crafted.
A raw collection of stories that’s not to be overlooked."
The writer I’d compare Bales to is Bonnie Jo Campbell (American Salvage, Once Upon a River) who writes about rural southwest Michigan—she’s one of my favorite contemporary writers—and also started with an independent publisher.[...] Violence is always simmering under the surface in this town. Bales isn’t saying Trump caused this violence—remember that most of these stories take place almost two decades before. But she’s implying that the violent people of Pekolah, and other rural towns throughout America, are the ones who caused Trump. Bales’ sympathies lean to liberal-centrist rather than far-left I’d love to see a character in Pekolah who thinks both major political parties are bad for the town. I don’t get a sense Pekolah is ever going to be anything other than a bitter shithole town You’d think people there might start to connect the dots and look for alternatives.I can relate to the misfits who find each other, and the secret places they hide in, like waterholes, or off-grid cabins. This is “fly-over” country: People from New York and LA don’t go here. Too bad, since Pekolah, though fictional, is America. But hearing the stories from this part of America might help us understand the country as a whole. If not despair for it.
