RaveWashington Independent ReviewIn fierce and spare language, the stories in this debut collection capture the hunger of the human heart amid the searing landscape of the American Southwest ... Watkins makes these stories seem not so much crafted as discovered, like accidentally talismanic arrangements of wildflowers found on a stroll through a desolate wilderness. Her characters and vivid images spring up, alive, in these landscapes, and they defy attempts to reduce them to their plots — what, after all, is the plot of that meadow? It is remarkable that her origins do not overwhelm her stories.For my part, it leaves me glad of those origins: If this is what it took to produce writing so deeply attuned to its characters, the literary world should be scouring the cults for more like her.
