Desert Gothic

Contents and Acknowledgments

What to Do with the Dead / 1 Sheets / 16 Mr. Epstein and the Dealer / 32 Dan Buck / 49 Mineral and Steel / 59 Blood Management / 79 Holiday at the Shamrock / 93 The Bulls at San Luis / 101 Little Sins / 120 Mormons in Heat / 136 Contents Acknowledgements I owe thanks to the following people for their support, encouragement, and guidance: Heather Schroder, Robert Glück, Dennis Cooper, Blake Nelson, Peter Dubé, Erin Johansson, Ralph Morgan, and especially Ben Fountain. Huge thanks to KJ Page for her bigheartedness. My dear pal Josh Benke provided much insight and humor. Emily Benke was extraordinarily helpful with information about marathon running. I want to acknowledge Luis Alberto Urrea and Charles Bowden for their tremendous and rousing border writing; I’d also like to pay tribute to the late, great Edward Abbey, who left his heart in the desert. A Jentel Residency Fellowship afforded me the time to clean up several of these stories. Thanks to my family, as always. And enormous thanks, for her patience and love, to my partner, my collaborator, Robin Romm. “What to Do with the Dead” and “Mr. Epstein and the Dealer” appeared in the Southwest Review . “Sheets” and “Little Sins” appeared in Grain. “Blood Management” appeared in the Santa Monica Review. “Holiday at the Shamrock ” appeared in the Cimarron Review. “The Bulls at San Luis” appeared in StoryQuarterly. “Mormons in Heat” appeared in the Kenyon Review. “Mineral and Steel” appeared in Epoch . “Dan Buck” appeared in the Greensboro Review. Desert Gothic ...