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Stories of Prison, Crime, and Men
by Scott WolvenPowered by a spare, ruminative prose style that recalls the best of Denis Johnson and Thom Jones, Controlled Burn is an unforgettable debut.
Once or twice a decade, an unknown short-story writer blazes onto the
literary scene with work that is thrilling and new. Scott Wolven is such a
talent, and his raw, blistering tales of hard-bitten convicts, dodgy informers,
and men running from the law make for "the most exciting, authentic collection
of short stories I have read in years," says George Pelecanos.
Brooding, edgy, and sometimes violent, Controlled Burn's loosely linked
stories are each in some way a distillation of hard time -- spent either in
prison, the backwoods of Vermont, or the badlands of the American West. Peopled
by boxers, drunks, truck drivers, murderers, bounty hunters, drifters traveling
under assumed names, and men whose luck ran out a thousand miles ago, these
stories feel hard-won from life, and if they are moody and stark, so too are
they filled with human longing.
Controlled Burn is divided into two sections: "The Northeast Kingdom" and
"The Fugitive West." In each, Scott Wolven reveals a broken world where there is
no bottom left to hit. In the haunting "Outside Work Detail," convicts stoically
dig graves for their fellow prisoners yet reserve their deepest grief for the
senseless death of a deer. "Crank" introduces Red Green, a maniacally brilliant
addict who brews his own crystal meth in a backwoods lab, and whose high-energy
antics inspire both cautious admiration and mortal fear in his business
associates. In "Ball Lightning Reported," Red Green's ultimate fate is revealed.
In "Atomic Supernova," a revenge-obsessed sheriff deputizes a known cop-killer
to help him hunt down a counterfeiter and drug lord. The unexpectedly tender and
heartbreaking "The Copper Kings" concerns a father facing the dark truth behind
his son's disappearance. And in "Vigilance," a hunted man struggles to escape
his past, always yearning for an honorable yet perhaps unreachable future.
Powered by a spare, ruminative prose style that recalls the best of Denis
Johnson and Thom Jones, Controlled Burn is an unforgettable debut.
Contents
I. The Northeast Kingdom
II. The Fugitive West
Ball Lightning Reported
Two days into a full-on ice storm, I drove the forty-five miles north and east from Burlington to Red Green's house in Newport, Vermont. All along the way, the woods were shattered. Trees splintered from the weight of the ice, scattering limbs and trunks on the frozen snow. Blue sparks arced out of severed high-tension wires, onto the icy blacktop. The temperature shifted by the minute, changing from rain to snow to ice, back to rain. My mind mirrored the storm, fierce addiction raging, beating my brain with baseball-size hailstones of chemical need. I thought about turning around, then thought about getting ...
Anthony Swofford,author of Jarhead
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. George Pelecanos
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. Michele Slung editor of Stranger and I Shudder at Your Touch
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. Nelson DeMille
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. Richard Ford
Wolven has turned raw, unreconciled life into startling, evocative, and very good short stories. He draws on a New England different from Updike's and even Dubus', but his fictive lives--no less than theirs--render the world newly, and full of important consequence.
If you liked Controlled Burn, try these:
by George Saunders
Published 2007
In a series of short stories, George Saunders explores consumerism gone haywire in a country and era somewhat like our own.
by Thomas Steinbeck
Published 2003
Deeply felt and richly imagined, full of compelling drama and historical authenticity, Thomas Steinbeck's stories are as memorable and rugged as the coastline that inspired them. Click the excerpt link to read a complete short story.
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