Firmly rooted in the modern American West, Site Fidelity follows women and families who feel the instinctual, inexplicable pull of a home they must work to protect from the effects of economic inequity and climate catastrophe. A seventy-four-year-old nun turns to eco-sabotage to stop a fracking project. A woman delivers her own baby in a Nevada ghost town. A young farmer hides her chicken flock from the government during a bird flu epidemic. An ornithologist returns home to care for her rancher father and gets caught up trying to protect a breeding group of endangered Gunnison sage grouse.In lean, lyrical prose, Claire Boyles evokes the bleakness and beauty of our threatened western landscapes. Spanning the decades from the 1970s to a plausible near future, this knockout debut introduces unforgettable characters who must confront the challenges of caregiving and loss alongside the very practical impacts of fracking, water rights law, and other agricultural policies. Site Fidelity is a vivid, intimate, and deeply human exploration of life on the shifting terrain of our changing planet.
I'm not sure if you will relate to these stories as much as I did if you haven't lived or visited the American West but there are global warming concerns that dominate everyone's lives and are universal. I will say this is book contained the first short stories I've ever read about Gabbs and Berlin, NV -- two places I visit every year. All that said, these were well written but I preferred the earlier stories rather than the later ones in the book.
Site Fidelity comes out soon on June 15, 2021 and you can purchase HERE. Definitely pick this up if you are a fan of short stories! For more excellent stories about the American West, I recommend Christopher McCormick or Claire Vaye Watkins.
My heart sank a little. Not all ranchers are Pop's kind of rancher. Some find these birds obnoxious. Some refuse to pay grazing fees out of some misguided idea about their frontier heritage, about what the nation owes them. Some have organized, call themselves "sagebrush rebels." They've threatened BLM agents at gunpoint. They've invaded National Wildlife Refuges. They've elected sheriffs all over the West who believe the Constitution gives them full rights to ignore federal and state laws.
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