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American Salvage (Made in Michigan Writers Series)

3.96 of 5 stars 3.96 · rating details · 1,024 ratings · 231 reviews

American Salvage is rich with local color and peopled with rural characters who love and hate extravagantly. They know how to fix cars and washing machines, how to shoot and clean game, and how to cook up methamphetamine, but they have not figured out how to prosper in the twenty-first century. Through the complex inner lives of working-class characters, Bonnie Jo Campbell...more

Paperback, 170 pages

Published April 1st 2009 by Wayne State University Press (first published 2008)

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Apr 14, 2013 Richard rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been revised and can be found at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.

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Oct 15, 2012 Cedar rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american, favorites, short-stories

Perspective is speculative are best, ignored at worst and sometimes Authors loose individual characters perspective when writing short stories, as the main characters can blend into one general person, each displaying a different facet of the same personality, and therefore perspective.

Bonnie has achieved a fantastic result with the reader feeling the poor dirty desperation, the hopeless shattering of dreams, realisation and revenge, and plain old love lost. Sometimes the level of unrecognized...more

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Aug 04, 2012 Dirk rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is strong stuff. These are stories mostly of working-class people on farms or in small towns in Michigan whose lives are spinning out of control. Many of them are addicted to meth or have some sort of codependency with people addicted to meth. The description of these people's lives is painful, straightforward, unjudgmental, and sometimes ferocious. You feel their pain, and in some cases their dignity and integrity. Indeed the issue of how people succeed or fail to be true to one another is...more This is strong stuff. These are stories mostly of working-class people on farms or in small towns in Michigan whose lives are spinning out of control. Many of them are addicted to meth or have some sort of codependency with people addicted to meth. The description of these people's lives is painful, straightforward, unjudgmental, and sometimes ferocious. You feel their pain, and in some cases their dignity and integrity. Indeed the issue of how people succeed or fail to be true to one another is often the heart of the story. I was reminded at times of the early fiction of Joyce Carol Oates, whom I don't particularly admire, but these people are more desperate. Meth or some other passionately distorted need, it rides them like a voodoo, and they cannot afford the self-regarding narcissism of Oat's characters.
I note that we never enter the point of view of a meth user. Their compulsion drives then and affects others, but we don’t learn what it feels like. There is nothing of the great drug novels of the last century like The Naked Lunch or Under the Volcano, or before them writings of Coleridge or de Quincy.
In many cases, the plot turns on someone driven to act by a distorted/idealized view of some one else, often by a man of a woman. Sometimes the protagonist has the modicum of flexibility to arrive at a truer conception of the other, which is at least a minor saving grace, and sometimes not. The plots are driven by character, and driven is the word, like Greek tragedy. The stories are wonderfully constructed, like stonework without mortar. In several cases in the last paragraph or sentence the telling thought is disclosed that reveals colors what it all meant and gives the reader a rush. The characterization is intense. In many ways, you don't see deeply into these people, but it doesn't matter because they're so convincing. I thought the prose was unambitious but effective until I happened to read a story aloud to someone. It was disappointing. It turns out there's no fun in speaking it; it felt dead on my lips.

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Apr 10, 2013 E. Kimble rated it 3 of 5 stars

I tend to caustically refer to the short story form as being about "terrible people in horrible moods living miserable lives." xD I'm probably jaded by one too many fiction workshops packed with pieces that mistook bleakness for profundity. Campbell's a talented writer, but she fits this description to a T. Wow. I won't say there were some affecting moments in American Salvage, because there were, but the curiously dreary subject matter got so repetitive I became desensitized to it before the en...more

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Apr 02, 2013 Michelle Lancaster rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-ve-reviewed

Stories by Bonnie Jo Campbell
Published 2009 167 pages
Wayne State University Press Detroit
ISBN 978-0-8143-3412-6
Rating: 3 - Pretty good

American Salvage, a product of the Made in Michigan Writers Series at Wayne State University Press Detroit, is a collection of fourteen short stories written by Bonnie Jo Campbell.

Each of these stories is set in down-and-out rural Michigan. Most of the characters are damaged by poverty. Some of these families are laboring under poverty so exhaustive that it seem...more Stories by Bonnie Jo Campbell
Published 2009 167 pages
Wayne State University Press Detroit
ISBN 978-0-8143-3412-6
Rating: 3 - Pretty good

American Salvage, a product of the Made in Michigan Writers Series at Wayne State University Press Detroit, is a collection of fourteen short stories written by Bonnie Jo Campbell.

Each of these stories is set in down-and-out rural Michigan. Most of the characters are damaged by poverty. Some of these families are laboring under poverty so exhaustive that it seemingly offers no hope for a better life. Simple things can be a crisis for these families: the gas bill, dinner, school shoes for a child. These things rise to the level of crisis because the characters cannot conceive of the long term because the short term necessarily commands all of their effort and attention. For the most part this is all they have ever known. They believe that they are doing all they can but not gaining any ground. Consequently, they fall into a belief that they are at the mercy of "others," whether it be the family, the boss or the government (Y2K!) They feel powerless against these forces.

This is best illustrated by a young girl from The Inventor. "She has long imagined her future spreading out before her, gloriously full of love and discovery; she has been waiting for the future to arrive like a plate full of fancy appetizers in a restaurant, like a lush bunch of roses placed in her arms, like the biggest birthday cake with the brightest candles, baked and lit by people who love her." This is a response and an accommodation of poverty; not imagining she could go out and create a future for herself, difficult as it would surely be.

My two favorite things:

This is my favorite quote from the collection: "It landed with a resounding clang on the pile of catalytic converters- mostly they were dirty and rusted from the slush and mud and road salt, but each of their bodies contained a core of platinum." This is from King Cole's American Salvage. The character in this scene performs back-breaking labor outside in all types of weather, for little money, in an auto salvage yard, but he has plans and determination and resolve to make a better life for himself. This may sound odd to compare human potential to a catalytic converter but I take the quote as a metaphor. Some of us don't look like much on the outside but there's a valuable core of promise.

My favorite character is Jill from Boar Taint. She has discovered a way of coping with her economic circumstances. She indulges herself by buying gourmet chocolate bars one at a time. She keeps them in her underwear drawer and breaks off one square each night until the bar is gone. Then she goes out and buys another. This small act says that Jill still believes she is valuable; that she does indeed have a core of platinum.

American Salvage has won an impressive number of awards: 2010 Michigan Notable Awards, 2010 National Book Critic Circle Book Award, Stuart and Venice Gross Award for Excellence in Literature from SVSU, 2009 National Book Award Finalist, and the 2009 ForeWord Book of the Year Award. If you are a fan of realist American regionalism (as I am) and a fan of short stories (ditto) then you may find many things to like in this collection. However, if you are not a fan of these genres then you should probably pass by American Salvage. It is not for the faint of heart.

I give this a 3- pretty good.

And remember that love does not conquer meth!!(less)

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Nov 08, 2012 Rhonda Browning White rated it 5 of 5 stars

Such a great collection of stories about real life, real people, real circumstances, dire as it all may be. A lot of painful truth lies in these pages, and it’ll shock you when you recognize it as such.
My favorites include “Family Reunion,” in which a young girl crosses a river and faces the uncle who raped her. “King Cole’s American Salvage” is quick, brutal and accurate lesson in small-town drama, the kind that involves love, anger, desperation and forgiveness. “Boar Taint” reminds us that ev...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Cameron rated it 4 of 5 stars

It has been a long while since I have read a collection of short stories. The last time might have been during one of the last college courses I took to get my English degree. This collection, though, has made me realize just how amazing short stories can be.

All of the stories presented here form an exceptional final piece. All of the stories are heartbreaking, moving, raw, realistic, depressing, yet, somehow...hopeful.

The stories are all told from Michiganders of varying backgrounds, but all...more

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Mar 22, 2012 Jason Pettus rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary, character-heavy, dark, hipster, stories

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

I recently found myself with the opportunity to interview revered author Bonnie Jo Campbell for the CCLaP Podcast; and so before doing so, I thought it would be beneficial to read her two most popular books besides the one I've already read (2011's Once Upon a River, that is, considered by many to be a fro...more (Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

I recently found myself with the opportunity to interview revered author Bonnie Jo Campbell for the CCLaP Podcast; and so before doing so, I thought it would be beneficial to read her two most popular books besides the one I've already read (2011's Once Upon a River, that is, considered by many to be a frontrunner for this year's Pulitzer). And indeed, it turned out to be quite important that I read her 1999 breakout novel Q Road before talking with her, because it turns out to be a clever sort of prequel/sequel to the Once Upon a River title we'll mainly be discussing; set on the cusp of the new millennium, it tells the story of the "last hurrah" of sorts for a rural farmland area just outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan before finally succumbing to the capitalist steamroller of exurban subdivisions, chain restaurants and pristine golf courses, an Altmanesque interrelated ensemble character piece in which one of the characters (teenage tomboy and child bride Rachel Crane) just happens to be the daughter of the main character of Once Upon a River (the even more hardcore tomboy Margo Crane), only with the newer novel set in the older 1970s and examining Margo's own teenage years as a tight-lipped, sharpshooting pregnant runaway.

And in fact you can look at all three of these books in much the same light (including the slim 2009 story collection American Salvage, the third title in this list); they are all episodic in nature, take a sympathetic and nonjudgemental look at the kinds of characters we would traditionally call dumb white trash, yet can frequently reach a level of poetic harshness and violence akin to a Sam Shepard play, stories that don't excuse the behavior of the meth addicts, racists and uneducated hillbillies that populate her universe but that don't dismiss such characters either, an attitude that I'm sure at least partly stems from Campbell's own background as a willful tomboy in this exact kind of rural Michigan environment (but more on that in the finished podcast episode, coming next week). Powerful and unflinching, yet beautiful and easily readable, it's no surprise after reading these three books that Campbell would have the kind of intensely passionate fanbase that she does, as well as racking up such academic tentpoles as a Pushcart Prize, Eudora Welty Prize, National Book Award nomination and National Book Critics Circle Award nomination; and I wholeheartedly recommend them all to a general audience.

Out of 10:
Q Road: 9.4
American Salvage: 9.0(less)

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Dec 02, 2011 Morgan Emily rated it 5 of 5 stars

found this in nanu(high school english teacher friends)'s bookshelf one day. layed stomach down on the carpet of her rented out room in morristown, and read the first story. then we went out a' drinking in afore mentioned morristown square section. the entire time i lit my brain up with i dont even remembered what, all i could think about was a semen and blood stained mattress. wondered if my own looked kind of like that?? if that little twelve yr old entered my room, would she understand yet no...more

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Nov 01, 2011 Jill rated it 5 of 5 stars

Welcome to down-and-out small-town America: the dreamers, the unemployed, the hunters, the meth addicts, the damaged, the rape survivors, the prematurely old.

It’s not a pretty picture yet conversely, the prose shines beautifully in these 14 finely-tuned short stories. In a sentence – or a phrase—Bonnie Jo Campbell captures the thought process of a character and brings him or her to life.

Take, for example, Family Reunion, a dark story about an adept girl – a hunter-- who is raped by her drunken...more Welcome to down-and-out small-town America: the dreamers, the unemployed, the hunters, the meth addicts, the damaged, the rape survivors, the prematurely old.

It’s not a pretty picture yet conversely, the prose shines beautifully in these 14 finely-tuned short stories. In a sentence – or a phrase—Bonnie Jo Campbell captures the thought process of a character and brings him or her to life.

Take, for example, Family Reunion, a dark story about an adept girl – a hunter-- who is raped by her drunken uncle and has been rendered mute, as she dresses down a deer: “She hates that first slice that turns the deer from a creature into meat.” Or take a dysfunctional couple – Belle, a meth addict who cannot be saved and Thomssen, the man who tries to save her by offering her shelter in his home: “She would take what easy comfort she could, but she would not look for the roll of plastic or the staple gun, never in a million years would she fix the plastic over the broken window to keep the snow and cold from rushing in after her.”

Some of the prose is deceptively simple, as in The Solutions to Brian’s Problem. Here’s Solution #2: Wait until Connie comes back from the “store,” distract her with the baby and then cut her meth with Drano, so that when she shoots it up, she dies. And some is downright elegiac: “The universe seemed darker than he realized, and larger, which made each thing in it, including him, smaller.”

In these stories set in the declining Rust Belt economy, people do what they need to in order to survive. In King Cole’s American Salvage, an ex-con beats an auto salvage yard owner to inches of death, and then presents his girlfriend with a wad of blood-spattered cash so she can score some meth. The grotesqueries, violence, and addictions of small-town life are captured in ways that cause the reader to gasp with recognition…even if he or she has never set foot in rural towns like these.

These are raw, energetic, unsettling tales, vividly depicted, masterfully told. Bonnie Jo Campbell has earned her place among the very best of story tellers. Readers of American Salvage might also want to check out Donald Ray Pollock’s Knockemstiff, which mines some of the same territory in a fresh way.
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Jun 06, 2011 Natalie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really want to give this collection 4.9 stars. I loved it and thought it really fantastic; almost all of the stories were close to perfect. I just couldn't do 5 because I have a problem with the endings--not what happens in the ending, but the ending line or word. The writing throughout was so beautiful, but ending a story with a flat word (like "she") just bugs me. I want that last word to really mean something. This is a picky thing, I know.

I was really impressed with Campbell and her abilit...more I really want to give this collection 4.9 stars. I loved it and thought it really fantastic; almost all of the stories were close to perfect. I just couldn't do 5 because I have a problem with the endings--not what happens in the ending, but the ending line or word. The writing throughout was so beautiful, but ending a story with a flat word (like "she") just bugs me. I want that last word to really mean something. This is a picky thing, I know.

I was really impressed with Campbell and her ability to write these characters in an unsentimental way that did not fall back on stereotypes. These are not yokels or rubes (even though some reviews seem to think so). They are real people. They aren't always making good decisions, or doing things that make the reader comfortable, but that's what makes them so, so good. I can see why Alan Heathcock liked this collection because it reminds me of Volt in many ways (though, as a collection, I think this one might actually edge Volt out for me...).

I find it interesting that anytime a collection comes out that showcases the lives of working class or lower working class people who live in a rural environment, it's immediately called "dark" and the characters "hopeless". I think it really depends more on the reader than the stories. These stories were a little gritty, but dark? I don't know. To me, they were real stories told in a beautiful and interesting way. If I didn't know they were set in Michigan, I would swear they were Appalachian, much like the stories in Volt. Of course, most people who read the best Appalachian fiction talk about it's dark qualities and the hopeless people, too. Maybe this is saying more about me than about the story. Maybe Appalachians have a different idea of "dark" or "hope".

One thing I did find interesting was the fact that Campbell, a woman, chose to make most of her stories in this collection center around male protagonists. This isn't a criticism; just a comment. You don't see that so often.

My favorite stories in the collection were "Winter Life", "The Yard Man", "The Inventor, 1972", and, most especially, "Family Reunion".

I'm not sure I'll go back and read the first collection by Campbell because I'm sure this one is better and I'd just be disappointed, but I might check out her novels.(less)

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Apr 26, 2011 Alex V. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Bonnie Jo Campbell is an expert in wounds: how the way we get them is fuzzy and only reveals itself to us over time, in less time than it is revealed to others. How wounds that are not cared for heal wrong. How there is never any money to get wounds looked at anyway, and whose wounds ever heal right? What's right? How they heal anyway and how our every step bears traces of that botched healing, as are the steps of those that did the wounding. How there are little moments of clarity when our woun...more

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Aug 14, 2010 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the second collection by Bonnie Jo Campbell; earlier in the summer I read her first book of stories, and thought it was a solid collection, alternating funny stories and sad stories-- the former were about middle class folks with trifling problems, and the latter dealt, for the most part, with rural poverty.

Here in her second book, I think Campbell is showing great growth as a writer. And I mean that-- as much as I liked her first book, this one is much better. There is less of a put-on...more

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Dec 20, 2009 Ben rated it 3 of 5 stars

Bonnie Jo Campbell's American Salvage contains experiments with form, such as "The Solutions to Brian's Problem", but it's the setting that ties all these stories together: the vast stretches of rural America--small one-industry towns, blighted landscapes, poor and desperate people. Campbell skillfully ratchets up the emotional intensity: the intense pain of a serious burn slides into the ecstasy of sex which climbs into Catholic passion; blood features prominently throughout, as does asphalt, a...more

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Apr 25, 2012 Heidi Willis rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mfa

Although this collection of stories is about blue-collar people down on their luck - by choice or by circumstance - this is not a depressing read. The majority of characters in these stories are fighters, with plenty of attitude and spirit, albeit not always well-directed. They are complex, as deeply as real people, so some readers may not find the easy endings they'd like, but I thought the realities were honest. There is a fair amount of meth and drug and alcohol use here, and some violence to...more

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Jun 22, 2010 Glenda rated it 5 of 5 stars

Filled w/ the scraps of clunkers, salvage yards dot the landscape and lie dormant on the periphery of a city's landscape. Bonnie Jo Campbell picks through the lives of the poor, the tired, the weak, the abused and the abusers metaphorically to suggest those discarded from mainstream America, those lives that comprise the throw away society, populate more than place; they live in the very soul of Americana.

In "American Salvage" resides a duality of meaning, for a salvage yard is more than a plac...more

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Apr 09, 2010 Anna rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: stories

In a lot of ways, Bonnie Jo Campbell reminded me of a Midwestern Flannery O'Connor. Like O'Connor, she carries a strong omniscient voice through most of her stories; she fixates on the working class and rural landscapes; she does not shy away from violence or grit (neither does she romanticize it); and she fuses the strange, the beautiful, the sacred, and the profane in short tales that bear the whiff of myth about them.

But let none of that imply that Campbell is not unique. She is.

I perked up t...more In a lot of ways, Bonnie Jo Campbell reminded me of a Midwestern Flannery O'Connor. Like O'Connor, she carries a strong omniscient voice through most of her stories; she fixates on the working class and rural landscapes; she does not shy away from violence or grit (neither does she romanticize it); and she fuses the strange, the beautiful, the sacred, and the profane in short tales that bear the whiff of myth about them.

But let none of that imply that Campbell is not unique. She is.

I perked up to American Salvage because its stories span my native land in southwest Michigan (Campbell's native land, too). Who isn't interested in the stories others tell of the places they've lived and loved, places that created them? For a gal from small town Michigan, these tales--especially in fiction--are few and far between. Perhaps this contributed to how struck I was with Campbell's characters. The militia men, the hunters, the underemployed custodians, the farmers, the lonely-hearted bigots, the lovers of wilderness and gardens and animals, the protective parents, the dreamers, the meth addicts, the young teens with the old souls: it sounds hokey, but I know these people. I've never seen their stories told before with such truth, and I was really moved at how Campbell revealed them. They, every one of them, are worth salvaging.

I knew I'd love this book before I picked it up. And yet, as I devoured it over this last week, I still found myself surprised at how it felt, that love. And I'm surprised, frankly, that others who don't necessarily have a connection with the Midwest similarly fell in love with American Salvage. As a journalist accustomed to having my story ideas that have anything to do with the Midwest turned down for being too "local" for national publications (while New York/California stories are, of course, never too local for these same publications), I'm used to those who live elsewhere not being familiar with what is fantastic and powerful about this landscape. But in fact, Campbell's book--originally published by Wayne State University Press as part of its "Made in Michigan" series--ended up being a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction, one of the most prestigious literary honors in the U.S. and one of the few small-press books so named.

From the National Book Foundation's citation:

"In American Salvage, Bonnie Jo Campbell picks through the ravages of a small-town America gutted by shifting demographics, new technology, and methamphetamine. Eschewing nostalgia or bitterness, she leads with her curiosity, using canny observation and sensuous prose to coax the reader into dark, strange, primordial territory. These short stories approach their subjects from an array of perspectives, but what they share is freshness, surprise, and a compulsion to plumb some absolute extremes of American existence."

The publicity has brought Campbell significantly more readers--every one deserved. These fourteen stories shake in the bones. Their telling is agile and nuanced; while concise, each story has a sort of lingering feel about it. One reads this book feeling as if we, like the characters peopling a post-industrial land, are on the edge--a way of life ended, or begun; the ground shaking beneath our feet; lives strained and transformed; the smallness and bigness of it all. This is no theory. This is experienced bodily -- certainly by the people of American Salvage and, through this potent and visceral book, by us readers too.

(Book Review originally published at www.isak.typepad.com)(less)

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Jul 12, 2011 Bryan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio

This was narrated by Recorded Books “in house troupe” and I don’t know if that is good or bad. Does this troupe perform all of Recorded Books books now? Or maybe this was just a way not pay all the narrators? I’m not sure but it just seemed shady, but before every story the particular reader is named so that is good.

Sorry I’m addicted to audiobooks and I’m now obsessed with giving kudos to the readers.

As to the stories themselves, they are some fine working class “realist” fiction with a feminis...more

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Mar 26, 2012 Sasha rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: grad-school

The opening story, "The Trespasser", was a short but hauntingly effective snapshot that set the tone for the stories that follow. The writer gave just enough detail to unsettle the reader, and left just enough unfinished. My favorite of the collection was "The Inventor, 1972". It was compelling in the way it was told, splicing the moments of terror and pain from both the hunter and the girl along with flashes of memory. The hints at incest (with the girl and her thoughts about Uncle Ricky) as we...more

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Jun 11, 2011 Nilay Gandhi rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a killer collection that picks up steam the deeper you get into it. The narrator's incredible in each story--holding back, but really insightfully editorializing the characters, all of whom seem in desperate need of an explanation to something anyway. She takes the dull rural Michigan landscape and makes it somehow stand in for all of us and all of our problems. At times, though, these scenarios feel a little contrived or obvious, especially in the I-need-more-information first story "Th...more

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Jul 11, 2012 Lisa Beaulieu rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Humans

I picked this book up at 9 pm, and didn't set it down until I finished at 1 am. No, I lied - I set it down after the first story "The Trespasser" and thought to myself, "I really don't think I understand contemporary short stories". Then, I went ahead and read "Yard Man" and was hooked. Don't let the first story put you off - it is more an invitation into the book than a story in itself - after I finished the collection, I felt like Campbell had been letting me know in that first story what I mi...more

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Oct 09, 2012 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

I literally devoured this book. I was rapt after the first few sentences of the first story. I finished the book in a little over two hours. Then I passed out for an hour and a half! Granted, it's only 167 pages, and I probably could have finished it more quickly...but I wanted to savor every word.
American Salvage is a collection of short stories. They are all different, but are definitely interwoven somehow. Campbell has an incredible ability to put so much depth into a story that's just a few...more

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Jan 02, 2012 Derek rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Ben Findlay, Myke Reiser

Recommended to Derek by: Geeta

Basically the print version of those terrifying meth commercials, Bonnie Jo Campbell's excellent collection of short stories, American Salvage explores the depths of rural Michigan misery in striking fashion. Campbell knows how to do a hell of a lot of things really, really well, and chief among these is using setting to show character, and vice versa. The people who exist in these stories exist not only in their environments, but of them as well--and being conscious of this fact does very littl...more

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Jun 11, 2009 Kathy rated it 5 of 5 stars

In the best collections of short stories the setting becomes a character as well-realized as any of the human characters. In "American Salvage," turn of the 20th Century rural Michigan, home to big, beautiful snakes, white ermine, and deer that dance across the lake, is the backdrop for people with lives of often self-inflicted drama they would never recognize as particularly dramatic. For them it is more an ache in the chest, a wistful longing for a little bit more for folks who don't have a lo...more

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Dec 24, 2009 Jeff rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of the short story

Recommended to Jeff by: Jane (of Cristian & Jane fame)

This book was nominated for the National Book Award and was given to us by our friend (the publisher) long before that announcement. Still, i kept backshelving it. I'm glad that i finally picked it up, shortly after the bad news (i.e., not The Big Winner).

With only a couple exceptions, i felt satisfied (at least) by every story. Some Goodreaders have written that not only do the stories provide no resolution but they also don't truly begin. I think that's a matter of expectations. If you go to t...more

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Oct 30, 2012 Rachel rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed reading almost all of these stories, and as a former Michiganian (Michigander? Do we have a preference?) I found the landscapes (and many of the people) in her pieces immediately recognizable. However, more than once, I came to the end of a story, fully expecting more, and turned the page to find the start of another story. Some of her endings are so abrupt! Maybe I wasn't doing quite the right work as a reader, but I really wanted one more page, or one more paragraph, or even just one...more

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Nov 17, 2009 Starhistnake rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book should have been depressing. Truly awful things happen to and are done by the characters in these stories. And yet, there is an underlying feeling of hope. That of keeping on, no matter the circumstances. That it may never be perfect but it will be yours.

One of the strongest themes in all of the stories is that of dependence/independence. There is a desire to not be a burden or have someone else having a say in how his or her life is lived. Whatever this life is, these characters want...more

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Jun 23, 2012 Eli Hastings rated it 4 of 5 stars

Bonnie Jo Campbell channels a world more than she writes it. Thinking back on this, I have a strong impression of fog, mud and lurking danger--in various forms. This is, maybe, the latest and perhaps also the best in the burgeoning tradition of rural/urban gritty short fiction (think In the Devil's Territory, Knockemstiff, etc.). What she does best is character; some of these stories might best be described as sketches, albeit sketches on a hell of an authentic stage. There are horrifying images...more

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Oct 20, 2009 Nancy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: october-2009, short-stories, award-finalists-honor-books

A 2009 National Book Award finalist, Campbell's short stories are reminiscent of Raymond Carver's in their desolateness.

The linked stories focus on alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, divorce, and hopelessness. The Michigan setting is likewise desolate: grimy snow, the decaying, no longer functioning salvage yard of the title; dark bars where fights break out; a summer cabin invaded by meth addicts.

The title is perfectly chosen, reflecting on the personal lives of the characters, many o...more

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Oct 19, 2009 Tony rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: u-s-lit

Failed suicides. Abused children. Abused wives. Abused husbands. Meth addicts, and more than a few of them. Junked cars. Deteriorating homes. Marriages don't last here. Hope checked out long ago. Teeth are lost in a fight, or simply decay. In fact, the only story with any glimmer of hope involves a boar that was shot, unsuccessfully castrated and starved and yet managed to rise to its feet (sorry for the plot spoiler). Still, Campbell has an eye and ear for detail and certainly paints a picture...more

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About Bonnie Jo Campbell

Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of the National Book Award finalist American Salvage, Women & Other Animals, and the novels Q Road and Once Upon a River. She is the winner of a Pushcart Prize, the AWP Award for Short Fiction, and Southern Review’s 2008 Eudora Welty Prize for “The Inventor, 1972,” which is included in American Salvage. Her work has appeared in Southern Review, Kenyon Review, a...more

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Books by Bonnie Jo Campbell

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Quotes from American Salvage

“Men didn't understand that you couldn't let yourself be consumed with passion when there were so many people needing your attention, when there was so much work to do. Men didn't understand that there was nothing big enough to exempt you from your obligations, which began as soon as the sun rose over the paper company and ended only after you'd finished the day's chores and fell exhausted into sleep against the background noise of I-94.” — 3 people liked it

“It occurred to Susan that men were always waiting for something cataclysmic--love or war or a giant asteroid. Every man wanted to be a hot-headed Bruce Willis character, fighting against the evil foreign enemy while despising the domestic bureaucracy. Men just wanted to focus on one big thing, leaving the thousands of smaller messes for the women around them to clean up.” — 2 people liked it

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American Salvage (Made in Michigan Writers Series)

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