Angels and Others by Ken Smith (review)

160 Western American Literature romantic sentimentality—Fruit Fields in My Blood is truly about people, not an industry. Nevertheless, I found it hard to appreciate the unique flavor of big, cooperative families drifting with the seasons when the book was so fraught with the very image of destitution it set out to refute. This book is certainly a valuable record, but for analysis of its own material it seems almost willfully blind. /0ANIEL DUANE University of California at Santa Cruz /Angels and Others. By Ken Smith. (Lewiston, Idaho: Confluence Press, Inc., 1992. 146 pages, $9.95.) “Don’tjudge a book by its cover,” is an old saying that definitely applies to this fine selection of four short stories, a long story, and the novella “Angels.” Don’t let the cover put you off; the four stories are all good, the long short story is, in my opinion, the best short story written on the Vietnam War, and “Angels” is a jewel in tone and content. “The Government Man” is set in the Depression, when Henry Wallace’s idea for helping the economy was to raise farm prices by reducing production, pouring gallons of milk onto the ground, killing hogs and cattle, and limiting crops. This story deals with the dilemma that resulted—destroying cattle when people, especially the poor, needed food. The narrator’s “foolproof’ plan for “rustling dead cattle”goes awry, and the unintentional killing of a “government m an”puts the three young men on the run. Most interesting is the tension built up by the circumstances, doing wrong while doing right and being trapped by a simplistic legal code. And the narrator is most guilty, for he is the only one who is making money. The other three short stories are equally complex, but not as complex as the long one, “The Paul Jensen Story,” about friendship, war, writing, and love. The narrator, home from Vietnam, remembers his grandfather’swar, his Uncle Jack’s war, his now estranged wife, and his success in discovering the details of his friend’s (PaulJensen) death. Like a spider weaving its web, the narrator goes on in what seems to be a random construction until finally the story appears, intricate in design, perfect in execution. “Angels”is narrated by an “old woman”who is trying to explain her life. She tells her daughter, “I am not writing to you but about me. If I were to write to you, I would not tell the truth.” The story centers on her love for Angel, a Mexican worker on her uncle’s ranch, his death at the hands of her father and an unsuccessful suitor, and finally her two marriages. The tone is beautifully handled; we are, in truth, listening to this old woman recapture the past. It’s a fine ending for the collection, though one’s mind returns to “The Paul Jensen Story.” DELBERT E. WYLDER Corrales, New Mexico ...