How I Came West, and Why I Stayed: Stories

by Alison Baker

This classic Chronicle book remains available as a print-on-demand title. You can purchase it from an online bookseller or by order from your local bookstore. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811803244
• ISBN13: 9780811803243
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (CA)
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

GO!

This is a wonderful read! Let me add that "Margaret Mead" is absolutely hilarious. I almost split a gut reading it to my wife. Baker gets the language just right, so we can feel the character in the chosen words! This one story makes this a must-have book, but many stories here are daring, joyful, and stimulating. (Just a suggestion: To understand the story on page 93 a bit better, read The Flute of God by Paul Twitchell - or one of the books by Harold Klemp.)

Entertaining, Fresh Voice

Baker writes beautiful, entertaining stories. Though there are highs and lows throughout this book, each story was thought provoking and amusing. You can't get too comfortable (read: bored) while reading these stories- Baker always keeps you wondering where she will take her characters next. Great beginnings of the stories help catch your attention, and the ride through the rest of the story until you reach the end where everything comes together is a fun one you won't soon forget. This collection of short stories is definately worth a read.

O Henry in reverse

Alison Baker is to the surprise beginning what O Henry was to the surprise ending. "Benny Sarver knows what's going on in the lab where they clone babies out of one-eyed frogs." "The summer is so hot there's a spontaneous human combustion on the South Side." The stories that follow are eccentric, ironic, minimalist tales, which basically involve two pairs of human partners or a human couple and animals. The animals include bears, flamingos, deer, African bullfrogs and even dogs. The people are cowboys, ornithologists, Mormons, biochemists, gymnasts and cheerleaders. Quite delightful. One quibble is about the representation of Indian English. I am knowing many Indian doctors and and never I am hearing the continuous present. I am thinking this is how Americans are thinking Indians are talking.