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Wayne State University Press
April 2009
On Sale: April 15, 2009
170 pages
ISBN: 0814334121
EAN: 9780814334126
Paperback
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Non-Fiction
A lush and rowdy collection of stories set in a rural
Michigan landscape, where wildlife, jobs, and ways of life
are vanishing. New from award-winning Michigan writer
Bonnie Jo Campbell, "American Salvage" is rich with local
color and peopled with rural characters who love and hate
extravagantly. They know how to fix cars and washing
machines, how to shoot and clean game, and how to cook up
methamphetamine, but they have not figured out how to
prosper in the twenty-first century. Through the complex
inner lives of working-class characters, Campbell
illustrates the desperation of post-industrial America,
where wildlife, jobs, and whole ways of life go extinct and
the people have no choice but to live off what is left
behind. The harsh Michigan winter is the backdrop for many
of the tales, which are at turns sad, brutal, and oddly
funny. One man prepares for the end of the world -
scheduled for midnight December 31, 1999 - in a pole barn
with chickens and survival manuals. An excruciating burn
causes a man to transcend his racist and sexist world view.
Another must decide what to do about his meth-addicted
wife, who is shooting up on the other side of the bathroom
door. A teen aged sharpshooter must devise a revenge that
will make her feel whole again. Though her characters are
vulnerable, confused, and sometimes angry, they are also
resolute. Campbell follows them as they rebuild their
lives, continue to hope and dream, and love in the face of
loneliness. Fellow Michiganders, fans of short fiction, and
general readers will enjoy this poignant and affecting
collection of tales.
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