The New Regionalism

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short fiction, in particular—are desperately looking to find readers. Wayne State University Press’s “Made in Michigan Writers Series” attempts to build that audience locally then hopes to market their books outward from that base. (Full disclosure: I have a book in this series.)

Two new collections of short stories are wonderful examples. Both Bonnie Jo Campbell and Michael Zadoorian have published widely in literary journals and commercial novels. Yet both of their new collections are rooted in Michigan. Both are sometimes wildly funny and more than a little crazy, yet they have a heartbreaking affection for the battered lives they portray.

The stories in Campbell’s American Salvage all take place in west Michigan but not in some idealized natural environment overlooking a big lake. The people in these stories struggle to find their way through an America where country roads lead to broken homes, meth labs, alcohol addiction, and abuse. Yet the people suffering these ills also struggle to express their love and to reclaim their dignity. In “The Solutions to Brian’s Problem” we read several wild fantasies about how Brian and his baby can escape from his meth-addicted wife, who squanders what little money they have and often turns violent. He imagines murder and flight to some other state, and there is a dark humor to much of his fantasy. But in the end, he will live with his wife because “you knew she had this history when you married her, when she got pregnant, but you thought you could kick it together, you thought that love could mend all broken things—wasn’t that the whole business of love?”