The Book-a-Week Project, Week 6

The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas: Stories
Davy Rothbart

Were I Davy Rothbart’s high-school or community-college creative writing teacher, I’d be proud of him after reading this slim collection of stories. I would say, “Davy, you have talent, and if you keep working hard, you will one day be a good writer.” For most of the stories here, I would give him a B or B+. One would get a C. I would highlight sentences such as, “Elena and I clamped onto each other desperately as though we could ward off the world and its sickness,” and write in the margins, “Try to be more original here.” In several other places I would write, “SHOW us what he’s like, don’t TELL us.”

Every story is narrated in first-person. Davy is unable to write in any voice but his own, which makes for clunky dialogue and characterization. He shoots for capital-M meaningful conclusions to every story and they all feel forced. Someday he may be a good writer, but that day was not the day he wrote these stories. Most likely this was published to capitalize on the success of the book-length compilations of previously unpublished material from FOUND Magazine, which he created. It shouldn’t have been. The notes and letters in FOUND are great because they are frequently touching and sweet without trying to be. Rothbart should have learned more from them.

Perhaps the reason I can be so sure the quality of his writing is shoddy is that it’s probably similar to what I would write, had I the creativity to actually imagine a story I didn’t directly experience. So it’s probably similar to what I’d write if someone hand-fed me the characters and storyline, then let me have at it.

Next week: Bret Easton Ellis’s Lunar Park. And watch your local bookstore’s shelves for my upcoming The Solo Skateboarder of Nebraska, Ohio: A Reimagineering of Davy Rothbart’s Classic Stories.

You suckers.