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The Dirty Shame Hotel
Copyright © 1998
by Ron Block
New Rivers Press
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A collection of short fiction by Ron Block of Nebraska that focuses on
quirky characters from the Midwest. The title story is loosely based on a
man the author interviewed who ran "the most organized junk yard I have
ever seen," and who had constructed an elaborate theory of the universe
based on the principle of suction. Other stories are similarly whimsical and
grim, and all of the stories in The Dirty Shame Hotel twine together
outlandish imagination and lived experience. — from the jacket
Ron Block is a writer with nerve and verve, a high wire artist whose
stunning leaps of fancy balance us on the thin edge where the fantastic
and the ordinary meet. Dark, funny, horrific, magical, tender: these
stories expose the wide expanse of our living, our precarious steps through
the world. Like Block's characters, we long for someone to steady us. We
wonder, given the chance, how much we would risk for love. We contemplate
"the physics of desire." — Lee Martin
A man witnesses the aftermath of animal slaughter while taking his daughter
pumpkin-picking on a farm; two men plot the death of a Hank
Williams wannabe;
a lonely young man develops roundworm from exposure to old books —
these are some of the stories in Ron Block's original and hilarious
debut collection of stories. Block has a fierce range as a writer, the
stories riding the spectrum from quiet poignancy to the bizarre and raucous.
The Dirty Shame Hotel is a darkly comic, unflinching, and unsettling
account of the lives of the disenfranchised. — Laurie Foos
Poet Block's story debut is a find: droll tales full of real, rumpled,
irony-laden life. Even the weaker links here —
the more linear stories — offer
their passing if humbler pleasures, as in the tales of a high-school band
whose leader marches it actually out to pasture ("The Gothenburg
Marching Band"), a farmer who keeps a chimpanzee ("A Bed-Time
Story"), or two toughs so jealous of a local boy made good that they
want to murder him ("The Stanley Andrews Story"). When a nun,
though, runs out of gas outside a farmer's house ("St Anthony and the
Fish"), then moves in and transforms his life, the result deepens gracefully
into real seriousness ("At night, sometimes, Ned could feel...nothing
creep right up to the house and almost stare in the windows"). Though
Garrison Keillor is better on the air than on the page, Block can catch the
tone and pace of an oral Keillor and tack it down for keeps, as in "Land
of the Midnight Blonde," about life in the Fargo of today. And at his very
best, Block turns the dreariness of existence in Nebraska or the Dakotas
into something approaching musical hymns to humanity... — Kirkus
Reviews
Block's mastery of the well-turned phrase proves an alluring bait in
the 13 stories of his first collection. He captures his Midwestern
characters with wonderful comic economy. ... This volume demonstrate an
original talent waiting to be honed. — Publishers' Weekly
... wildly imaginative ... dreamlike and darkly humorous ..."
— Minneapolis Star Tribune
Risking both humor and pathos, Ron Block's first collection of stories
provides welcome evidence that minimalism is finally losing its grip on
American fiction. ... The depth and humor of Block's writing — and
his whimsically passionate view of the human condition — make for
pleasurable and satisfying reading. — Foreword Magazine
Ron Block's stories are eerie black comedies set in a surreal Midwestern
landscape. His first book collects 13 of them; each one a rough gem. ...
Block does what few writers can: he's playfully experimental and
emotionally rich all in one gasp. — Minnesota Monthly
The quality of these short stories far exceeds that of many short story
collections — even "best of" compilations by preeminent authors. ...
Don't wait for an excuse to treat yourself. — Bloomsbury Review
Striking regional details which clearly show the everyday lives of more or
less ordinary people who, like us, have their moments (sometimes hours and
days) of good and bad, of mute serendipity and even magical achievements.
— Bill Cosgrove, Nebraska Territory
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Dismal River
Copyright © 1990
by Ron Block
New Rivers Press
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The power of Ron Block's mythic vision and many voices makes them
essential elements in the new literature of the west. Along with Jim
Harrison, Ray Carver, Evan Connell, and a few others, Block is exploring
the values — and disvalues — of the frontier in a thoroughly
contemporary context. This book, written in the humility of the lone
artist-adventurer, is at the same time crucial to the nation's
self-understanding. A remarkable and glorious book. — Hayden Carruth
In these muscular poems, Ron Block reminds us how deeply the lives here
have been stung by the bare fact of their being lived. With a sure hand,
he turns the language of these poems toward experience — which is at
once the experience of telling and the telling of experience — to
show how men who farm the lie have to live between either side: male
legends reveal as much about the powerlessness of life, as about its
powers. — Jay Meek
Ron Block sent me his manuscript Dismal River. I put it at the
bottom of a stack of fifty-seven galleys, then changed my mind and took it
to my cabin, mostly because I love the actual Dismal River. I'm not sure
what to say except that it is a wonderful and totally successful long
poem. I was absolutely engrossed by the texture and sense of detail and
for Mr Block's informed passion for the landscape. — Jim Harrison
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What the Critics Say
Bibliography
