Claire Vaye Watkins definitely has talents. You can tell that almost from the first paragraph of the first story in her first collection “Battleborn”. Her words are both poignant and poetic. I read half of the collection and tried hard to like it, until I finally decided that I am not obliged to like every author who made their name into the “best of the year” list. Nevada - the place and the people, the myths and the miseries - just cannot connect with me, even though the author / narrator weaved cleverly her real own life and history into it. Her narrative techniques, shifting time, tenses, and formats, are a bit too much effort for me, and I am not surprised at all to know that she teaches creative writing at a university. Alors, to counteract my fussy comments, here is a positive review written beautifully by Antonya Nelson for NY Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/books/review/battleborn-by-claire-vaye-watkins.html
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