At the Jim Bridger: Stories
| At the Jim Bridger: Stories |
| Ron Carlson |
| USA |
| (2002) |
Ron Carlson, where strange beach towels turn up in your living room;
where the ordinary son of a family of geniuses spins a rollicking tale
of happiness and disappointment; where a teenaged magician seduces the
prettiest girl in his high school and the world, with devestating
consequences; and where a desperate ex-con with a broken heart must hide
out in a desert hotel, only to make a startling discovery.Long regarded
as one of our finest living short story writers, Ron Carlson
triumphantly returns to the form with
At the Jim Bridger
, nine stories
that are epic in scope and confessional in tone; stories that enfold the
reader in a world of love and mystery, and make us feel better than
just about anything written on the page.
Acclaim for Ron Carlson’s
At the Jim Bridger
“Carlson goes beyond conventions to create characters who in their strangeness become suddenly rich with life, their situations lying just beyond the edges of commonplace existence…. This collection of stories about people in the uncertain moral terrain of the American West consistently surprises and delights.”
—
Los Angeles Times
“In
At the Jim Bridger
…Carlson does not throw one air ball. In these nine short stories and two elegant little sketches he concentrates on people—relentlessly American and almost all men—at internal crossroads.”
—
The Hartford Courant
“Carlson is one of those rare writers who has remained true to the literary form he seems to love best and at which he excels: the much maligned short story…. Readers of
At the Jim Bridger
will be glad that he has.”
—
Journal Sentinel
(Milwaukee)
“In the hands of Carlson, a writer of subtle force, these stories are engrossing and at times profound.”
—
The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Ron Carlson’s stories burst from the pages, filled with humor and pathos…. Few writers can match Carlson when it comes to creating stories rich in character and plot, stories that actually tell a story…. The nine stories in this volume are each gems.”
—
The Charlotte Observer
“[Carlson] writes the kind of intimate, layered portraits of American life and its bittersweet comedies that everyone should read and not enough do.”
—
The Boston Globe
“Beautifully written, with small details…that easily conjure up a time and place.”
—
The Washington Post Book World
“This collection of short stories could be used as a how-to manual for budding writers. Each of the eleven pieces is crafted to perfection, without a misplaced word or thought.”
—
Booklist
“Filled with Carlson’s trademark warmth and humor.”
—
The Salt Lake Tribune
“Enchanting…seductive.”
—
The Dallas Morning News
“Ron Carlson knows men and women, fire and snow, loss and discovery. His stories are not glimpses, but whole landscapes of real life, well lit.”
—Amy Bloom, author of
A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You
“[A] taut, focused collection…sharing graceful, unadorned prose and elegant metaphors…. With a precision and consistency rarely achieved in similar collections, this volume should earn Carlson continued, well-deserved recognition.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“Carlson can be funny, quirky, domestic. He continually surprises, generating a unique world that, while marred by loss and inadequacy, is redeemed by moments of tenderness and grace.”
—Book magazine
“Ron Carlson—long one of our finest storytellers—is in peak form in
At the Jim Bridger.
If you wish to understand how it is we live at the beginning of the twenty-first century, you must read Ron Carlson.”
—Robert Olen Butler, author of
Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
“All these stories are immediately engaging. They create places and people that are recognizable…. Yet there is also something magical and marvelous about them: a great, sweeping feel that is usually found in novels…a sense of history, of things gone before…an understanding, if not a meaning, of what it is to be human.”
—
Creative Loafing
“In these stories, we see a master at work. The language, the humor, the compassion—all blending splendidly together to reveal humanity at our finest. I love this book.”
—Chris Offutt, author of
Out of the Woods
“Considered one of America’s great short story writers, Carlson is at it again. In
At the Jim Bridger
you’ll feast your eyes on some of the funniest and saddest stories ever written.”
—
Phoenix Monthly
“These stories are masterpieces in miniature—lives captured at crossroads that might be invisible to less astute hearts and pens. To me this is as good as it gets: bold writing about things very tender. I loved this collection.”
—Elinor Lipman, author of
The Inn at Lake Divine
“These are short stories written by a master of the form and you will be glad to have read them.”
—
The Bloomsbury Review
“Ron Carlson’s poignant, funny, bittersweet stories provide a stunningly differentiated field report of life in the West…And his distressed and out-of-kilter characters are just as various: grifters, mathematicians, wildlife managers, television news reporters, the lost souls of wealth and progress. He listens and sees and writes like no other. Read him and be beguiled.”
—Ron Hansen, author of
Mariette in Ecstasy
“Like all sublime fiction, the stories in Ron Carlson’s
At the Jim Bridger never
make sense. Instead, they make love, war, peace, trouble, and truth. Read this book.”
—David Schickler, author of
Kissing in Manhattan
ALSO BY RON CARLSON
Stories
Hotel Eden
Plan Β for the Middle Class
News of the World
Novels
Betrayed by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Truants
At the
J
IM
B
RIDGER
Stories
Ron Carlson
PICADOR
NEW YORK
AT THE JIM BRIDGER. Copyright © 2002 by Ron Carlson. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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“Towel Season,” “At the Jim Bridger,” and “The Potato Gun” appeared in
Esquire
; “The Clicker at Tips,” “Evil Eye Allen,” and “At the El Sol” appeared in
Tin House
; “Disclaimer” and “Single Woman for Long Walks on the Beach” appeared in
Harper’s
; “The Ordinary Son” appeared in
The Oxford American;
“At Copper View” appeared in
Five Points
; “Garry Garrison’s Wedding Vows” appeared in
Glimmer Train.
Additionally: “Towel Season” appears in
The Big Esquire Book of Fiction and Symphony Space Selected Shorts Audio Vol XIV;
“At the Jim Bridger” and “At Copper View” appear in
The
Ο.
Henry Prize Stories 2001;
“The Ordinary Son” appears in
The Best American Short Stories 2000
and
The Pushcart Prize Anthology 2001;
“Disclaimer” appeared in
Witness
and
The Human Project;
“Single Woman for Long Walks on the Beach” appeared in
The Hawaii Review.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carlson, Ron.
At the Jim Bridger : stories / Ron Carlson.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-28605-8 (hc)
ISBN 0-312-30724-1 (pbk)
1. United States—Social life and customs—20th Century—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.A733 A92 2002
813’.54—dc21
2001059065
First Picador Paperback Edition: May 2003
D 10 9 8 7 6 5 4
For Elaine
CONTENTS
Single Woman for Long Walks on the Beach
I
TOWEL SEASON
SUDDENLY IT WAS JUNE AND
there were strange towels in the house. There were stacks on the table in the entry, two or three towels that Edison knew were not their towels. In the hall, he’d step over large striped piles of strange wet towels waiting to be washed. The kids, Rebecca and Toby, pedaled home in bathing suits, alien towels hung on their necks. Twice Edison tripped as he sidled through the laundry room carrying his files, his feet tangled in a great heap of these damp things. The commotion brought Leslie from the kitchen and she looked down at him, the absentminded professor, his papers around his head. “You’re kind of too young for this kind of thing,” she said. He didn’t look uncomfortable. She knew if she left him there and went back to her potato salad, there was a good chance he’d simply go to sleep. He was up past one almost every night working on his largest mathematical project. This was his final experimental journey for the firm; if it worked, he was going to be able to go on and on toward the edge. If not, he would join all the other middle-level engineers.
“Whose towels are these?”
The answer was, depending on the day, the Hanovers’, the Plums’, the Reeds’; close-radius towels, the Hanovers and their pool just down the street, the Plums and their pool around the corner, and the Reeds and their pool not three
blocks across from the elementary school all the children (nine total) of these people attended.
“These, dear, are the Plums’ and we’ll be returning them this evening when we go over there for a cookout, so get your work done.” She picked up his files and laid them on his chest. “Okay? Swimming? Drinks on their patio? Remember? Don’t worry, when the time comes, I’ll drive us all over.”
Edison crawled to his feet. “All right.” Leslie watched him go into his study, and then she stuffed the towels in the washer. He was working on the most advanced and important calculations of his life. The firm only kept one or two theoretical mathematicians, and this project would determine if Edison would make the cut.
The summer developed into these dinners and all the shifting towels. That night, they loaded the car and drove five hundred yards to the Plums’ and drifted with the Hanovers and the Reeds toward the gate, carrying their coolers and casseroles and Tupperware containers and the bundle of towels. They seemed like zombies in a fog to Edison, because he was in a fog most of the time himself, so many hours working at his computer screen, and inside the greetings continued even though they’d all seen one another at the Reeds’ three nights ago. Edison and Allen Reed opened bottles of Corona and sat out on the picnic table in the steady heat of the season. These outings always disoriented Edison, who saw them as some kind of puzzle. Part of him was still at his green screen mulling equations while he watched the children spill into the green pool and the women set out the food.
“How’s the project going, Ed?” Allen asked him. Allen Reed, large and tan, was an applications engineer for the firm. Ed looked at the man’s skin, so dark from the sun he seemed part of the strangeness. What kind of engineer has such a tan? Allen was about five years older than Edison and had an affectionate condescension for theoretical math.
“I’m working every day,” Edison said. He was looking at the bench where all the towels had gathered in stacks: fourteen towels. There was no way those towels were going home with the right families. Folded there in multicolored order, they seemed part of some problem Edison had solved this week or dreamed of or was working on now.