When Past Met Present: Vintage Colorado Short Stories ed. by James B. Hemesath (review)

Book Reviews 309 scout Jim Beckwourth, Brigham Young, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, and Mariano Vallejo. But the bulk of the selections comes from diarists or letter writers who have little or no fame but whose varied backgrounds ereate a gripping diversity of incident, detail, and perspective: reports by or about common miners, criminals, clergy, doctors, high-born and educated travelers, Europeans, Mexicans, Chileans, Blacks, Chinese, Japanese, Jews, Indians. There are fond memories recorded as well as bitter memories, admi­ ration and horror, humor and tragedy. It is difficult to summarize such variety except to say that this collec­ tion is, in parvo, a kind of gold rush itself. In it, truth once again has outrun fiction. It is hardly necessary to reinvent or reimagine a phenomenon with such a rich and real historical and biographical diversity as this collection demonstrates, that has yet been so slightly tapped. W hen P a st M et Present: Vintage Colorado Short Stories. Edited by James B. Hemesath. Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1997. 191 pages, $19.95. Reviewed by Jam es H . M aguire Boise State University In 1994, James B. Hemesath compiled a sampling of Colorado fiction and titled it Where Past Meets Present: Modem Colorado Short Stories; now, in the book under review, he gives us a companion volume. Comprised of thirteen stories, the new collection begins with a brief introduction by the editor and is then framed by two poems: John Van M ale’s “The National Western Stock Show” (1933) and Alan Swallow’s “Ghost Town: Night” (1946). Far better than the framing poems, the stories “explore the Centennial State from the late nineteenth century, through the Great Depression and World War II, and into the cold war era of the 1950s” (ix). The authors include “well-known, little-known, and ‘discovery’ literary per­ sonages,” namely, Sanora Babb, Verlin Cassil (R. V. Cassill), Marie Chay, John Fante, Steve Frazee, Joe Hansen, William M. John, Florence Crannell Means, Damon Runyon, Wilbur Daniel Steele, Bert Stiles, Chauncey Thomas, and Frank X. Tolbert. In theme and subject matter, the stories resemble more famous fiction by western writers from other states. Joe Hansen’s “Donovan and Gary” calls to mind depression-era western works such as John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle, Tillie Olsen’s Yonnondio, and Frederick Manfred’s The Golden Bowl. Wilbur Daniel Steele’s “Survivor” is similar to some of Willa Cather’s sto­ ries about struggling artists. Chauncey Thomas’s “Why the Hot Sulphur Mail Was Late” strikes me as being like Eugene Manlove Rhodes’s Paso Por Aqui. Although a native Coloradoan like me does not like to admit it, the literary quality of these thirteen Colorado stories does not surpass (and in 310 WAL 3 3 (3 ) Fa l l 1998 most cases fails to match) the quality of similar western works. Hemesath obviously knows of some better Colorado stories, for he dedicates When Past Met Present to Jean Stafford. None of her work appears in his book, however, presumably because, as Hemesath notes, her Collected Stories has “been reprinted by the University of Texas Press at Austin” (x). Still, since Hemesath excerpted parts of novels to make up several of his selections, one wonders why he chose not to include excerpts from novels such as Upton Sinclair’s King Coal or Frank Waters’s Pike’s Peak. Perhaps obstacles such as exorbitant permission fees made some choices virtually impossible. Whatever the ideal anthology might be, Hemesath has compiled an interesting collection with some memorable stories. Sanora Babb’s “That Presence Out There” hauntingly evokes a strange childhood encounter on Colorado’s southern plains. John Fante’s “In the Spring” captures a moment of discovery in the tragicomedy known as adolescence. Damon Runyon’s “My Father” rivals the period’s best western comedy (as, for example, in works by Alfred Henry Lewis). Hemesath’s greatest achievement lies in having assembled stories with such a rich variety of subjects, characters, and settings. From a dirt dugout to a sculptor’s studio, from Hispanic villagers to a girl homesick for China, When Past Met Present brings to life the Colorado of the years from about 1890 to 1960, a...