The Burning Ground

The debut short story collection by O’Riordan (author of the poetry collection In the Flesh) quietly examines the inner lives of men struggling to connect with others—family members, lovers, or even strangers encountered briefly—against the richly symbolic backdrop of the American West Coast. In “A Thunderstorm in Santa Monica,” a man named Harvey has flown in from London to visit his occasional lover, Teresa. But when her work requires her to leave suddenly for New York during his visit, Harvey finds himself reaching out to his seatmate on the flight over, with whom he shared a moment of intimacy and comfort when both men thought the plane was going down. And in a seeming homage to the Los Angeles noir tradition, “Rambla Pacifico” follows the journey of a man named Lindstrom into the city’s violent underbelly as he investigates the disappearance of his boss’s daughter. “Black Bear in the Snow” recounts a hunting trip during which a father tries to repair a fractured relationship with his adolescent son. Lovers are lost and mourned in these sharp and sometimes violent stories, and characters suffer through turbulence both literal and metaphorical, haunted by questions they never asked. O’Riordan is particularly skilled at finding the perfect image or detail to bring these worlds to life. (July)