cover image Interim in the Desert

Interim in the Desert

Roland Sodowsky. Texas Christian University Press, $19.95 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-87565-079-1

The 12 short stories in this first collection capture the experiences of an adolescent boy in the rural Southwest. In the opening story (``Knoxless''), we see the prominence of a general store in the lives of farm families--``Knox's was the last in a series of immeasurably pleasant stops in town''--and particularly its place in the history of one impressionable youth. ``World War II'' and ``Talking at a Slant'' evoke the quandaries experienced by young people when the truth translates as ambiguity. The volume's centerpiece, the title novella, best displays Sodowsky's storytelling strengths. A terminally ill, colorful woman is the catalyst effecting change and liberation for a couple whose marriage is ``inexplicably, ever so gradually falling apart.'' Perceptive renderings of acutely observed relationships mark each tale. (Oct.)