Volume 34, Number 17 · November 5, 1987
Fallen Creatures
By Alfred Kazin
Rock Springs: Stories
by Richard Ford
Atlantic Monthly Press, 235 pp., $17.95
'Low ceiling,' a distinguished novelist on an awards committee demurred when I spoke up for these stories by Richard Ford. Though often funny, his situations are not particularly sunny. In 'Optimists' a railroad man who shunts engines through the yard sees a hobo mangled on the tracks. Returning home in a vehement state of mind to tell his wife what he has seen (and he is already vehement about her as well), he is so stunned by a guest in the house who arbitrarily criticizes him for not saving the hobo that with one blow he kills the guest. In 'Empire' a man on a train journey with his wife is gripped by his total isolation in the long dark night when his wife goes to bed. Without liking her very much he makes love to a brusque woman in an Army sergeant's uniform. In 'Great Falls' another rancorous husband suspicious of his wife swoops down upon her with their young son—they have been out hunting—in such a way as not only to end the marriage but to deprive the boy of both parents forever.
Review, 1606 words
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