The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas
July 13th, 2003by Davy Rothbart
ISBN: 0971359792
I picked up this little book of short stories at my favorite comics store, but it is about 120 pages worth of short stories, not comics. Paul Hornschemeier (Forlorn Funnies) did do the text and cover design, so that could be part of the reason why. What I really hope is that it was there because independent stores are beginning to see that good, independently- or small press-produced creative work has a wider audience than previously suspected.
Taking Rothbart’s stories as an example, it should.
Saying these stories are different really wouldn’t tell you much, but they are different. The stories are populated by pathological liars, men trying to be good but possessing faulty moral compasses, a kid trying to surf on a hammock, lost children, and a girl growing up to be a prostitute, yet they aren’t depressing, they avoid being gritty just for the sake of grittiness. They are full of real feeling, not alway the feelings you expected, but ones that do ring true.
Rothbart has a good ear for dialogue and a seeming fearlessness when it comes to emotional truth-telling in stories. If you are still thinking that self-published or micro-press books can’t be any good or someone else (a “real” press) would have published them, or that they are slapped together with substandard printing and production quality, pick up this book and be happily proven wrong. Recommended.
