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Bull Head
by John Vigna
Do you have someone on your gift list who likes a little testosterone mixed in with their bookish desires? If so, this might be the just the book you're looking for.
There is a pervasive attitude that men, especially rural men, must be strong at all times. Weakness is, well, a weakness. Don't cry. Don't complain. Life not fair? Suck it up. Be a man.
This is the environment of the men we find in Bull Head (Arsenal Pulp Press), John Vigna's debut story collection. They're country men, small-town denizens. Loggers, truckers, farmers. Men trying to find their place in their world, trying to make their own stories fit in with what is around them. They're both tough and vulnerable, emotionally raw and at times hair-trigger explosive. Mostly they're just trying to make sense of their lives.
Violence is present in all these stories, but rather than being front and center it lurks in the shadows, waiting to deliver a sucker punch. Guns, of course, come into play, as do hands, trucks, and words. Sharp, biting words that do more damage in the long run.
Each story seems to act as a different element of one big story, different points of view of the same microcosm of society.They are populated by people feeling the rawness of isolation, physical but mostly emotional. Widowers looking to find a way to fill that hole that can never be filled. Young men trying to figure out what the world expects of them and how thay can achieve it.
In an earlier interview, Vigna said, "I've always had that sort of warmth or interest in how people make their lives work, when they're tied together with the resources. The challenges that go on for people of all demographics in small areas is tremendous, just like it is in the city, but there are other factors in play. So I have a real keen interest in how people make it all work and how they relate to the world. I think that's where it comes from. My time living in those areas has been really moving. There are just so many different people trying to make a go."
Another great story collection from another great local writer. Sounds like another great gift idea.
In the spirit of an eco-conscious holiday, parts of this post have been recycled from an earlier one, which you can read HERE.
