"Long Story Short: American Literary Fiction"

Kathi ("Snookles") Hiatt writes me that she is a "CSUC retiree and editor of the POA's Nugget in Magalia." She's received Butte Literacy Council awards and the Jack London Award in 2019 while serving as the President of the North State Writers.

In her collection of short stories, some newly published, some the basis of Blue Room Theatre performances, the focus is on narrators making it through the miseries and screw-ups of life, many self-inflicted, including, as one character puts it, "my losing battle with underarm jello-jiggle that helped me decide on the piece of equipment designed to strengthen triceps." Of course, one must be careful not to get one's top caught in said equipment. Especially if one is not wearing a bra.

"Long Story Short: American Literary Fiction" ($12.95 in paperback, independently published; also for Amazon Kindle) by Kathleen T. Hiatt, with sketches by Steve Ferchaud, offers a mélange of two dozen tasty morsels, including poetry, some poignant, some horrific, some laugh-out-loud funny, some O. Henry surprising. 

Hiatt carefully notes that "to protect reputations and not have to explain myself before a judge, there may be certain scenes, characters, names, and locations that have been exaggerated, changed, fictionalized, or just plain lied about."

Some of the stories take place in the "bygone era" of the 1950s and 60s, so Hiatt provides parenthetical notes for those not up on their ancient history. "Calling Ma Bell" mixes talkative teenagers with the household phone, a "bulky black device (color wasn't an option)" with "a rotary dial on the front with a handheld receiver holstered on top." Fun fact: When someone is on the phone, a stern dad stranded in a thunderstorm would only get a busy signal when calling home.

There's "Sex in the 60's" (there was?) and green M&Ms; "Potty Mouth" at a Catholic School; the horror of "Wireless Caller 666" (Stephen King creepy); "Two Whacks With A Wooden Spoon" (how young Luke lost his middle finger); and "Why Boys Need Mothers" (smug dad home with Lickers the cat and a whirlwind near-four-year-old son Andy).

So what about "The Power of Inappropriate Cleavage"? It is, as a columnist might write, a revelation.

"Reflections: 100 Hundred-Word Stories"

The Sacramento River drew Bob Madgic and his wife Diane to Shasta county after Madgic's career in public education. He published "The Sacramento: A Transcendent River," books on fly fishing, Half Dome, and the couple's rescue dog Ebby.

His Amherst College career began in 1956 and after his 60th reunion he decided to take up a classmate's challenge to write a memoir with each chapter clocking in at exactly 100 words. Come to think of it, why not exactly 100 chapters?

"Reflections: 100 Hundred-Word Stories" ($10 in paperback from River Bend Books, 6412 Clear View Drive, Anderson, CA 96007) is, as Madgic says in the preface, an opportunity to "dish out praise, admit errors, settle old scores, recast one's image, expose cultural idiosyncrasies, and perhaps, prompt a chuckle."

The author met the famous and infamous. "It was no privilege to greet scumbags Roy Cohn and Joe McCarthy. But to meet Eleanor Roosevelt was a rare honor…. She was the strongest voice of her time for the civil rights of Blacks and against the wartime internment of Japanese-Americans." He connected, if briefly, with Richard Nixon, Ted Kennedy, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

Donald Trump's visit to Redding gets thumbs down, as does most religion, as does camping in the Rocky Mountains with their kids Kirk, Doug, and Jen during a thunderstorm. "It's better to camp when it is sunny." Noted.

In the Sixties he attended Stanford and "helped park cars at Stanford home football games for $1 an hour and free admission." One Saturday, to his chagrin, a yellow Cadillac convertible pulled into the lot but then sped away, only to park illegally close to the entrance. As Madgic observes, "Long after the game ended, the owner and car were still there, waiting for service to come and inflate the Cadillac's four flat tires."

Back in 1958 a friend suggested Bob meet Diane, the new waitress at a local cafe. "I was in no hurry because I have always been quite discerning about women and didn't expect much in this case." Ahem. When she finally did wait on him Bob found her "Especially singular. I was smitten, and have remained so for all of my life."

"The Cruelty Of Swallows: A Novel Of Life, Loss And Love"

Former Butte County resident Nancy Weston, now living in Idaho, had a long career in professional management, including in the medical device field. Her new, meditative novel is set within the context of the burgeoning semiconductor chip industry in the late 1960s and beyond.

Narrator McKenzie Bell Jamison ("Kenzie"), who works first at Bell Labs and then Midland Semiconductor (later becoming a key player in a medical device company), has everything going for her. Especially after meeting Thomas ("Tommy") Brier, "a whiz at fiberglass fabrication"; the two move in together after his divorce.

"Neither of us were interested in church or religion," Kenzie tells us. "Neither of us were eager for children. He never went to college. In fact, he couldn’t read, hardly at all. He was highly intuitive. Very intelligent … His personal unspoken creed gave him his glorious demeanor, his patience and love of life and every living thing. I began my own spiritual journey."

With the rise of Silicon Valley, the two dream of building a business together, or working for George Lucas' Industrial Light And Magic, but it is not to be. Kenzie must face "The Cruelty Of Swallows" ($14.95 in paperback from Weston Writes; also for Amazon Kindle) when Tommy is taken from her in the midst of lovemaking. 

Subtitled "A Novel Of Life, Loss And Love," the story is a confessional about "flirting with self-destruction" as one of her therapists says.

Eventually, in San Juan Capistrano, Kenzie must come to terms with what anger can do to a person. The swallows have a lesson: "They say a pair can support two chicks. If a third egg is hatched, one egg will be ejected from the roost and smash to the ground. Nature favors its own fortitude. It is not kind. It is beautiful in its entirety, yet the breadth of life includes cold brutality and intolerance along with its symmetry, grace and diversity."

There is more loss as well among family and friends; in the end, Weston's story is about "embracing loss with the same openness as the love, seeing it as a gift, the most costly gift of all…."

"Hunting: A Cultural History"

"In California," write Jan E. Dizard and Mary Zeiss Stange, "there were 700,000 hunting licenses sold in 1970. Forty-nine years later, after the population had roughly doubled, only 225,000 licenses were purchased." Though women are now 10% of the country's hunters, overall interest is waning. While critics might welcome the news, the authors argue conservation-minded hunters could be allies even to modern-day environmentalists.

Stange, an authority on women and hunting, is Professor Emerita of Women's Studies and Religion at Skidmore College. Dizard, who now lives in Chico, is Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of American Culture Emeritus at Amherst College, and has written widely on race relations, environmentalism, and hunting ethics. 

Their book, "Hunting: A Cultural History" ($16.95 in paperback from The MIT Press; also for Amazon Kindle), part of the Essential Knowledge series, may well change your mind about the importance of hunting. 

From prehistoric times, Dizard and Stange note, "the killing of animals, especially large, warm-blooded ones, triggered a volatile mix of emotions that yielded normative practices that absolved the hunter of guilt or remorse"; there have always been "rich myth and lore" around hunting, "elements which persist, albeit in more secular garb, down to the present."

The authors acknowledge that "the fact that hunters, then and now, take pleasure in hunting and find satisfaction in a successful kill has been, and continues to be, the basis for a critique of hunters and hunting more generally." 

Sport hunting generates images today of wanton killing; but a century ago, being a "'sportsman/woman' then meant that you hunted by a code of rules that were meant to honor wild game and emphasized the thrill of a fair chase…" which meant "utilizing the kill—including where possible the hide/fur as well as the meat."

Today's environmental efforts have increased the animal population even as wildlands have faced encroachment by humans. "Living with wildlife sounds great," the authors write, "yet it's not a solution to goose-polluted parks and beaches, and it's not a solution to deer densities that exceed the capacity of the environment…."

The danger today? If hunting is increasingly confined to a small group of the affluent, wildlife management will be left to—exterminators.