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Volt

by Alan Heathcock (Goodreads Author)

3.96 of 5 stars 3.96 · rating details · 630 ratings · 127 reviews

A blistering collection of stories from an exhilarating new voice

One man kills another after neither will move his pickup truck from the road. A female sheriff in a flooded town attempts to cover up a murder. When a farmer harvesting a field accidentally runs over his son, his grief sets him off walking, mile after mile. A band of teens bent on destruction runs amok in a d...more

Paperback, 208 pages

Published March 1st 2011 by Graywolf Press (first published 2011)

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Jan 22, 2013 karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: hey-shorty

what i am finding i like the most about these tales of the downtrodden in appalachia are their range of expression. this one falls in between the explosive, gratuitous (in a great way) violence of Crimes in Southern Indiana: Stories and the almost severe restraint and quietude of In the Devil's Territory. they are stories of strict realism, told dispassionately, but not without emotional appeal, if that makes sense.

and before anyone squawks, for me, "appalachia" is a state of mind and a mode of...more

58 likes · like · see review

May 05, 2013 Lou rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: april-2012, short-stories, best-reads, mystery-thriller, noir, re-read-list

Check out my interview with Alan Heathcock @ http://more2read.com/review/interview-with-alan-heathcock-may-2012/

If you have liked the Authors, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Steinbeck, Cormac McCarthy and William Gay you will like this.
These snippets of stories feel like ballads of loss, love, redemption and reconciliation, they ooze originality and great craftsmanship. He takes you to dream like sense of feelings at times in these stories of magical realism. Literature with dark themes,...more

25 likes · like · see review

Jan 08, 2013 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review can now be found at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.

24 likes · like · see review

Nov 21, 2012 Melanie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favourites

I've bruised and battered this book, taken it with me here and there, unable to shelf it, even after reading it. Largely because although I read the thing, a greedy read does not do the work justice.

Of all the short stories I've read lately - Woodrell, Pollock, Flannery O'Connor, this collection has the most heart.

The first two short stories are spellbinding. Cinematic. Slight gear change with the stories that followed but still in the territory of excellence. A new favourite.

5 likes · like · see review

Apr 26, 2011 Alan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Alan by: short review

Shelves: short-stories, read-in-2011

I was just saying (on another review) how I don't abandon books, but 'Volt' came along, and that called to me and told me to stop everything and read it: two stories in, it's brilliant. Terrifying and riveting and bone melting.

Later..
Yes the whole book was terrifying and riveting and bone melting. Heathcock is in the tradition of McCarthy and Carver and Steinbeck in the unflinching approach to his characters, here people of an imaginary town called Krafton (I hope it's imaginary cuz there's far...more I was just saying (on another review) how I don't abandon books, but 'Volt' came along, and that called to me and told me to stop everything and read it: two stories in, it's brilliant. Terrifying and riveting and bone melting.

Later..
Yes the whole book was terrifying and riveting and bone melting. Heathcock is in the tradition of McCarthy and Carver and Steinbeck in the unflinching approach to his characters, here people of an imaginary town called Krafton (I hope it's imaginary cuz there's far too many murders/suicides/disasters for one place to sustain - flood and fire and death everywhere you look). He gets into their souls and makes you think and feel like them. I had to hold on tight to survive the first couple of stories. You become displaced from your seat on the bus or wherever and are on the tractor that kills Winslow's son on the first page:
Winslow simply didn't see his boy running across the field. He didn't see Rodney climb onto the back of the tractor, hands filled with meatloaf and sweetcorn wrapped in foil. Didn't see Rodney's boot slide off the hitch....
..He whirled to see what he'd plowed, and back there lay a boy like soemthing fallen from the sky.
(besides this Icarus one there are other classical allusions, eg the monster in the maze in The Daughter)
That simple and effective writing [those diminishing sentences saying so much: Winslow simply didn't see; He didn't see; Didn't see..] is there throughout the book. Winslow cannot cope with what he's (accidentally) done (view spoiler). At first I thought here's another 'descent' story, like many of Beckett's or Paul Bowles's fabulous 'A Distant Episode', and it does follow that trajectory, but then it goes beyond that and into a kind of redemption, a sliver of hope for the poor man. You are glad for him. The next story - I won't spoil anything by telling you exactly what happens but there is another death, gradually revealed and how a father and son cope with it, how they physically go about the task, gives the story a kind of hyper-reality, lurching and sickening, but it comes with a great depth of feeling (and insight) for the boy. The third, well this has more of the same, again about how people react and cope with death and destruction, how they defend morally (to themselves mainly) their actions. This latter has a woman sheriff out of her depth (not because she is a woman I hasten to add) trying to cope with several tough things - a flood and looters and child abduction and... perhaps I've already said too much. There is some similarity to 'Fargo' in the set up here, and throughout you get touches and flavours of American stories and novels you know, but Heathcock adds his own special intensity. His town is full of the inarticulate or partially articulate up against an indifferent landscape and the full force of weather and human appetite and stupidity, or just plain error and misunderstanding. Through his words you get inside their skins in a unique way.

The book should be read in order as characters appear throughout the book and build on what you know about them previously (although they all stand up as separate pieces too). This is particularly true of Helen, the sheriff I mentioned - she appears in several stories and you follow her development as she attempts to adminster justice and deal with criminal families, and this all comes together in the wonderful title story, the last in the book.

There were a couple of things that niggled - I got a bit lost in the long story 'The Daughter', but that was probably just me. The other thing was the dates - in the flood story we are told it is 2007 and 2008, yet there are very few references to modern life or culture - eg mobiles (cell phones I think they're called in the US), and the film stars that are mentioned, eg Roy Rogers and Trigger and Shirley Temple are from way back, so I was a bit confused there. Apart from that all I have to say is this is a truly stunning collection, one of those that comes along only once in a while and my advice for those that love short stories is to buy it now.(less)

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Feb 05, 2012 Lavinia Ludlow rated it 4 of 5 stars

Heathcock's debut collection of stories, Volt, comes highly concentrated and packs a tight punch. In mere paragraphs, he can describe a scene, a situation, and introduce multiple characters, and he does it naturally and unforced. He has a rustic writing style, reminding me of Mark Twain and Jon Steinbeck, leading me to believe this book was not written in today's fast-paced, technology and information overloaded society, but one of a quieter nature somewhere in the wooded towns and farm-ridden s...more Heathcock's debut collection of stories, Volt, comes highly concentrated and packs a tight punch. In mere paragraphs, he can describe a scene, a situation, and introduce multiple characters, and he does it naturally and unforced. He has a rustic writing style, reminding me of Mark Twain and Jon Steinbeck, leading me to believe this book was not written in today's fast-paced, technology and information overloaded society, but one of a quieter nature somewhere in the wooded towns and farm-ridden states of America. Content-wise, Volt defies the everyday mundane. A total of eight stories shed light on the barbaric underbelly of society, and how grief-stricken victims react to intense emotional traumas.

The book opens with The Staying Freight, a gritty tale about a man who accidentally tills his son into the ground. Post-incident, he wanders out for "just a walk," but turns it into a Forest Gump-like expedition, searching for sanctuary from his searing guilt, "Under a pale moon, Winslow knew he no longer belonged to the world of men and would forever roam the woods as a lost son of the civil." His agony disconnects him from his ability to relate to others, so he heads into the woods, takes on a new identity, finds a job in the killing room of a turkey farm, and becomes a circus show where the highest bidder gets to punch him in the stomach. In the end, his wife finds and leads back home to his familiar home; however, it's obvious that he's irreversibly damaged.

In Smoke, a man asks his son, Vernon, to help him cover up the tracks of his murder. Together, the two venture off the beaten path, reminisce about the past, chat about right and wrong, Heaven and Hell, and finally, burn the victim’s body. I wondered what impact the series of events would have on this kid, and whether he'd take the disturbing experiences and apply them for the better or worse. Either way, I envisioned a cycle of violence within the next generations, and a helluva lot of counseling for the next of kin.

To me, Heathcock's strongest writing surfaced in Peacekeeper, a story about a town's police officer, Helen, discovering the butchered remains of a young girl. "Slivers of pink broached the flurries in the western sky. She paused, breathing heavily, and stared down over the valley. A black stream cut the mottled white, powdered trees hunched on their hummocks. In one distant corner of the prairie the last of daylight glinted off a tin roof. Some gentle movement in her periphery made her notice the near trees. Far below, a large white oak still held its autumn leaves, its branches gently waving. Through a gap in its canopy she glimpsed a flash of pale skin. Her breath drew away, and then she was shuffling down the bench and she slipped and fell hard on her back, sliding in the new snow to the base of the slope." Helen turns vigilante, attempting to cover up the murder and take justice into her own hands by torturing the murderer.

Overall, Volt is a collection built upon the darkest emotions of the human experience. Often, I was searching for glimmers of positivity, whether in the form of a small joke, ironic dialogue, anything to uplift the shadows of every paragraph. However, Heathcock writes the dismal, ugly, and atrocious well, and I look forward to seeing what he'll release in the coming years. Volt is currently available for purchase through Graywolf Press and other retailers.
(less)

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Jul 06, 2012 Sonya rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012

We read one story from this collection in my short story class and if there ever were a case for being so wowed by a story that it would almost make you afraid to write because how could you ever write something that good yourself, PEACEKEEPER would be that story.

Later...

The collection as a whole is strong and violently observant.

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Feb 28, 2013 Literary Review The rated it 5 of 5 stars

By Marion Wyce

For The Literary Review
Volume 54 "Emo, Meet Hole"

I live in sports-obsessed Philadelphia, where athletes are held up as heroes and villains, debated endlessly in bars, coffee shops, on websites and talk radio. This fall, the talk was all about the football team’s quarterback, Michael Vick—recently out of prison for running a dog-fighting ring where dogs were electrocuted, drowned, and maimed. Animal lovers insisted his actions were so heinous that he should be
prohibited from playin...more

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May 05, 2011 Richard Thomas rated it 5 of 5 stars

(This review was originally published at The Nervous Breakdown.)

Small town living is always the same, whether it’s in Arkansas, Idaho, or Missouri. Built on the backs of linked story collections like Winesboro, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson and Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock, Volt (Graywolf Press) by Alan Heathcock follows the lives of a handful of lost souls, tragedy washing over them like a great flood, people with names like Winslow, and Jorgen, and Vernon. In the fictional town of Krafton, w...more

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Feb 22, 2012 Newengland rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary, finished-in-2012

Blurbs aren't usually worth the paper they're written on, but Stewart O'Nan's take on Alan Heathcock's short story collection, VOLT, about nails it: "In the tradition of Breece D'J Pancake and Kent Meyers, Alan Heathcock turns his small town into a big canvas. Like the tales in WINESBURG, OHIO, the stories in VOLT are full of violence and regret, and the sad desperation of the grotesque."

While we are about the business of allusions, I would add Henry David Thoreau's famous line, "The mass of men...more Blurbs aren't usually worth the paper they're written on, but Stewart O'Nan's take on Alan Heathcock's short story collection, VOLT, about nails it: "In the tradition of Breece D'J Pancake and Kent Meyers, Alan Heathcock turns his small town into a big canvas. Like the tales in WINESBURG, OHIO, the stories in VOLT are full of violence and regret, and the sad desperation of the grotesque."

While we are about the business of allusions, I would add Henry David Thoreau's famous line, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." The characters of Heathcock's 8-story collection still haven't found what they're looking for, that's for sure, and many of them are so lost that they seem this side of hopeless in their search. Many try to run, but you cannot run from yourself when you are the baggage.

This collection is similar to WINESBURG, too, in that its setting remains consistent -- the mythical, western town of Krafton and surroundings -- and has repeating characters who sometimes appear from story to story. One is the sheriff, a solid woman named Helen Farraley. Others are ne'er do wells, such as the just-returned-from-service-in-the-Middle East kid, Jorgen Delmore.

In "The Staying Freight" a farmer who accidentally plows over his young son (occurs on the first page of the story) lights out for the woods and keeps running. Through deprivation in the wilds, he is finally found by some yahoos in a half-wit town where a man uses him as a fighter to take on all comers with a fistful of dollars and a brain full of mush. In "Smoke," a young man is asked by his father to help burn the body of a man he, the father, has accidentally-on-purpose murdered. They go on the run deep into the wilds, then up to a mountainous cave to do their dirty work, but can sin be disposed of that easily? The smoke reminded me of Lady Macbeth's blood stain. About the only weak story in the collection is "Peacekeeper," which bounces back and forth in time and loses some of its gravitas in the process.

"Furlough" is about a kid named Jorgen Delmore who, against his own judgment, plays a key role in setting up a young girl for a practical joke that, like many scenes in Krafton, borders on the cruel and flirts with the violent. "Fort Apache" treats on a group of kids' wild night on a temporarily vacant town (yep, towns are THAT small). "Daughter," the longest story, is a compelling tale of a middle-aged woman reeling from the murder of her aged mother. She builds a maze in her cornfields for comfort, but when it's occupied by very young but wayward, white-trash boys with not-so-innocent "kid" weapons, bad things start to happen to good (and not so good) people.

The final two stories do not let up, either: "Lazarus" shows us a pastor on the edge, his son dead in an overseas war and his wife lost to divorce, trying to revive his love for the wife via a questionable method -- the dead son's as yet unopened letters from the front. And in a final, vicious finish, Helen Farraley gets called upon to serve a summons to the son in the toughest, meanest trash family the town has to offer: the Delmores. You won't soon forget her visit or the rogue's gallery of scary sorts that comprise that family.

What I like best about Heathcock's book is his prose style. It's good and lean -- hard, minimalist prose that values the meat and potatoes we know as specific nouns and action verbs. Thus you get lines like, "The night hung a damp chill. Jorgen stuffed his hands in his pockets, nodded for Mary Ellen to follow... Hickory trees rustled overhead. Wet leaves papered the road. Jorgen had once been at the center of things, with everyone else, but then he went to serve overseas, in that desert land, and though he'd been back awhile he felt as gone here as he had over there."

If you've a stylistic penchant for the writings of Hemingway, Raymond Carver, Cormac McCarthy, and yes, Breece D'J Pancake, Alan Heathcock is your man and VOLT is your book. Highly recommended, though not for the faint of heart or those in need of any cheerful pick-me-ups. Quiet -- and sometimes noisy -- desperation, remember? (less)

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Apr 06, 2013 Trina rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-general

The stories in this collection are charged with moral ambiguities, hence the title. They have a way of jolting the reader into attention much like a cattle prod, forcing us to go in a direction we might not care to go.

Part of this ability to shock comes from the inchoate thoughts of the characters, part from the images created by the author. There are mazes, floods, and arson; there are references to power wires and electric storms, as well as fireworks, auroras, projector beams, lanterns, fire...more

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Sep 12, 2012 Ryan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Warning: This review reads much like the novel: Haphazard, disjointed, but loosely connected by the common theme of the book.

This Sherwood Anderson meets Flannery O'Conner meets Ernest Hemingway read commences with some promise. Heathcock's brief, but poignant Hemingway-esque writing certainly helps to create an air of suspense, but at times I found myself wondering if more substance was resting beneath the writing, or if much of it was meant to be taken superficially. I think this is where Heat...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Nigel Bird rated it 5 of 5 stars

What an interesting book Volt is.
Alan Heathcock is a teacher of fiction writing at an American university. The attributes I imagine would go to making a good teacher of fiction are put on display in this collection and it is clear that the future of creative writing is safe for another generation.
That said, I do have a slightly mixed reaction to Volt.
The first three pages should be enough to convince any reader that they’ve made a good decision with their selection. The power of it demonstrates...more

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Dec 27, 2011 Bookbeaver rated it 2 of 5 stars

I came across quite a bit of hype for this collection of stories over at TMN in anticipation of the upcoming ToB so I conjured up a copy through my local inter-library loan process. Among the praises being sung for these stories were comparisons to Carver (yes, these were about the down-trodden, people with less than they deserve (?) or those living a tough live of their own making), McCarthy (well, Heathcock is from Idaho and one assumes his locale of 'Krafton' is 'out west', so there's that, a...more

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Jun 11, 2011 Jenny Shank rated it 5 of 5 stars

http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/...

Alan Heathcock’s ‘Volt’ Delivers Cinematic Stories of Small Town Noir
Boise writer Alan Heathcock makes a strong debut with Volt.

By Jenny Shank, 3-07-11

Volt
by Alan Heathcock
Graywolf Press, 207 pages, $15

Boise writer Alan Heathcock‘s gripping debut short story collection Volt is an intricately crafted examination of a fictional small town called Krafton that could be located anywhere in rural America. If you happened to pass through Krafton, you’d be advised...more

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Apr 18, 2011 MJ rated it 5 of 5 stars

Alan Heathcock's debut is a collection of eight short stories set in and around a small fictional town called Krafton. From the first story, The Staying Freight, to the last, Volt, Heathcock is a master at developing multi-layered characters within a handful of pages. One of the stories, Furlough, is barely eleven pages, and yet the character of Jorgen is marvelously complex and conflicted. The result is a haunting story that builds with each step the characters take into the dark night, into th...more

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Mar 13, 2011 Bernice rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book has been so well reviewed that I'm a little intimidated to add my two cents. I lack eloquence in this area. I will say that reading the opening story "Staying Freight," made me want to just sit and be grateful for family in the same the way that watching a good friend or family member fight and struggle against some terrible circumstance that leaves us all helpless makes me need to sit back and be grateful. These stories reflect back to the reader what it means to be human especially w...more

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May 22, 2011 Brandon Tietz rated it 3 of 5 stars

Some say that you know you're reading perfect writing when you don't even realize you're reading anymore. The page numbers pass uncounted. You, the reader, devour each word with greed, like a drug. And before you know it, the story is over and you are changed somehow, both resolved and left thinking at the same time.

This phenomena happens in Alan Heathcock's collection, "Volt," and it happens right away with his first story, "The Staying Freight," a piece about a man who kills his own son and en...more Some say that you know you're reading perfect writing when you don't even realize you're reading anymore. The page numbers pass uncounted. You, the reader, devour each word with greed, like a drug. And before you know it, the story is over and you are changed somehow, both resolved and left thinking at the same time.

This phenomena happens in Alan Heathcock's collection, "Volt," and it happens right away with his first story, "The Staying Freight," a piece about a man who kills his own son and engages in a walkabout, searching for his own penance to satiate his grief and guilt. In my opinion, it's one of the best stories I've read in years, but unfortunately, Heathcock sets the bar too high for his own good. The phenomenon never repeats and we are left with seven subsequent stories that never match that initial mark. Perhaps my opinion of what "best" is doesn't match with those reading this review, however, you also need to consider that "The Staying Freight" first saw publication in The Harvard Review, and in that respect, also sees no equal when considering his other stories and their initial publications.

"Smoke" is about a father and son getting rid of a dead body together after an altercation. This is easily my second favorite of the collection, but something very interesting happens when you get done with these first two: you realize there's a consistency in the writing, the tone, the narrative, and this is when you officially check in that there's a certain repetitiveness to these pieces. It's most relevant with the setting of the town, and in this respect, Heathcock succeeds by drawing readers into this seedy part of the world and feeding each of our senses.

This is when people diverge into two camps: the "I like consistency" party and "I'd like some variation" party. Basically with "Volt" you get the same kind of writing with characters that are small-town sounding in a place that varies little to none with each story.

I experienced this before with "Knockemstiff," a collection by Donald Ray Pollock. Small town inhabited by small town folk doing dark or "transgressive" things. The problem is that whereas Pollock fully embraced the darkness, the grime, the depravity, Heathcock maintains a lighter, less edgy version of that. It's more fluffy and literary, as if to say, "I'm going to show you my dark side, but I'm going to put my best foot forward, too." He executes this to perfection with the first story, but as I said, they mostly go downhill from there.

Heathcock also intermingles characters and events of this time and place--and this is something that I really enjoy about collections when done right, however, Pollock has also done this before and did it better.

Perhaps this comparison is unfair, but if you've read both collections--even if it was months apart (as is the case here), it doesn't take too long for those dots to connect that "Volt" and "Knockemstiff" are cut from the same cloth, but the latter does it better.

Regarding "Volt," I loved the first story, enjoyed the next, but the remaining six were very much hit and miss, the biggest (and longest) miss of them all being "The Daughter," which read like the longest, most convoluted 50 pages of my life. Ultimately, I feel lukewarm. Whether or not I read Heathcock's next remains to be seen, but after reading "Volt," I hope he takes the route of Pollock and gives us a novel instead.(less)

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Dec 31, 2010 Lori rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc-reviewers-copy, fiction, indie-awesomeness

Release date: 3/11

So in my mad rush to cram another book into 2010 - I cracked this collection of short stories open and found myself unable to lift my eyes from it's pages. Not because I wanted to finish it before the ball dropped, but because it completely sucked me in and refused to spit me back out!

2010 seemed to be bursting at the "short story" seams. I read more short stories this year than any other years combined and it looks as though 2011 is headed in the same direction. What I love ab...more

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Mar 23, 2012 Eric rated it 5 of 5 stars

In recent years, there has been a revival of a subgenre of literary fiction: the novel in stories, or story cycle, or collection of interrelated stories (the name depends largely on the whim of the publisher or reviewer, the degree of relatedness among the stories, and/or the presence or absence of an overarching plot line tying the stories together); often these stories have a common locale linking them, or a character (or set of characters) who appears in all or many of them. Probably the clas...more In recent years, there has been a revival of a subgenre of literary fiction: the novel in stories, or story cycle, or collection of interrelated stories (the name depends largely on the whim of the publisher or reviewer, the degree of relatedness among the stories, and/or the presence or absence of an overarching plot line tying the stories together); often these stories have a common locale linking them, or a character (or set of characters) who appears in all or many of them. Probably the classic example in American fiction is Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio . A discriminating list of more contemporary examples might include Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son, Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, Cathy Day's The Circus in Winter, Dean Bakopoulos's Please Don't Come Back from the Moon, and Donald Ray Pollock's Knockemstiff. Of these, only Bakopoulos prefers that his book be considered as a novel (with fair reason, I think), though Day's book has often been taken as such, and a film has been made of Johnson's book which treats the stories as a more-or-less continuous narrative. It would be hard to make a case that the members of this loose genre have much else in common, except that many seem steeped in loss, a distinct somberness that often borders on the elegiac. There is little humor or easy uplift in these stories, true; on the other hand, you will find none of the cheap irony, smirking denial of affect, or smug detachment that passes for characters' inner lives in much contemporary fiction.

Alan Heathcock's collection, Volt, is one of the newest, and certainly one of the best, additions to this popular literary species. Set in the fictional town of Krafton, over a period of time spanning the late 1940s to the present, and including a disastrous flood, Volt is not content to be merely elegaic. It strives for the heroically elegaic: each of Heathcock's characters, no matter how humble in the eyes of the world, feels like a figure from legend, a Sisyphus pushing his burden forever uphill, an Orpheus searching the underworld. In the hands of a lesser writer, Heathcock's heroic ambition might become tedious, hackneyed, overwrought; but he holds his stories tightly to the mundane and workaday--his characters' victories and failings are existential and psychological, overcomings of self. Two of the more memorable heroes in these pages are women, including one unforgettable woman who struggles, over the course of several stories, simply to be respected in her role as a law officer in the same way a man would, and to deal with the terrible and conflicted responsibility of serving both justice and the law. There are no wars or war heroes here; war is simply a distant place where boys are sent off, to return--if they return at all--as badly damaged men. Likewise there are no safaris, bullfights, orgies of game fishing, boxing matches, or other Hemingwayesque rites of machismo. There are mainly the circumstances of ordinary life, its self-doubts and banal fears; and especially the ways in which coping with the intrusion of another person's unexpected death--whether that person was a loved one, a stranger, or an enemy--can distort and tear at one's emotional fabric in harsh and unexpected ways and coax the most terrifying demons from the survivor's subconscious. (less)

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Nov 06, 2011 Eric rated it 2 of 5 stars

Recommended to Eric by: The Next Best Book Club

For my first "book club" read I wasn't too happy honestly with the book that I was hoping to enjoy immensely. The stories personally did not resonate with me in any fashion and in most instances felt like I was beginning to wonder why I was reading the book. I pushed through it because I never like to be the person to leave a book without reading the final word on the final page.

Mr. Heathcock does a great job of writing in this book, but that doesn't always mean that a story or in this case sto...more

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Apr 02, 2011 Larry Olson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Bruce Machart (Wake of Forgiveness) recommended Volt by Alan Heathcock that clinched a three-run homer for me. Pretty rare that you read three novels in a row that you are absolutely crazy about but starting with Machart, then Percy’s Wilding set the bar pretty high. Heathcock did not disappoint. I am a big fan of southern gothic literature where a strong focus on the significance of family and community in one’s personal and social life is a central theme and what draws me to the type of writin...more

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Jan 04, 2012 RandomAnthony rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ok, I tried to write a normal Volt review and failed. I’m going with bullet points.

• Volt is really fucking good. Sorry. I know doesn’t give you much information. Let us move on.

• I try not to read reviews until I’m finished with a book, but I’m guessing (the unfortunately named) Heathcock (heh) gets compared to Woodrell, Faulkner, etc. Volt invites comparison and Heathcock’s (stop it) influences aren’t hard to track. That’s not a criticism. Volt isn’t a weak imitation of its predecessors. The...more Ok, I tried to write a normal Volt review and failed. I’m going with bullet points.

• Volt is really fucking good. Sorry. I know doesn’t give you much information. Let us move on.

• I try not to read reviews until I’m finished with a book, but I’m guessing (the unfortunately named) Heathcock (heh) gets compared to Woodrell, Faulkner, etc. Volt invites comparison and Heathcock’s (stop it) influences aren’t hard to track. That’s not a criticism. Volt isn’t a weak imitation of its predecessors. The book comes from the same neighborhood (e.g. poor white people in the middle of nowhere doing awful things) but builds its own house.

• Notice I didn’t call this book a novel. And I’m not sure I can call Volt a short stories collection, either. The structure is similar to Winesburg, Ohio in that the settings and characters intertwine and central themes emerge without a straightforward storyline.

• Heathcock focuses on people who can’t articulate why they do what they do, how they respond to the scenarios, and the dread they feel trying to make sense of both what they’re doing and what’s happening around them. The balance between impulse and reason is weak and comprehension unconscious and underwater. I’m reminded of the last few pages of Woodrell’s Tomato Red. Heathcock creates a strong sense of detail as well; he doesn’t overdo the specifics but, for example, notes the details a cop sees when she walks through a trashy yard on the way to talk with an old friend/fugitive’s mother.

• Rarely has the title of a book, in the work’s content, meant so much to me. When, in the last story, the connection between the title and the stories emerged, I felt an emotional wave pass through me in a way that people who don’t read will never, ever understand.

• I’m not a big book recommender, but I’m pushing this book like crack on a couple of my friends (Donald, Tadpole, I’m looking at you) who I think will like Volt. The only barrier to a five star rating is the transparency of the influences. The rest is top-notch.
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May 11, 2011 Richard Ayad rated it 5 of 5 stars

It is not often that an author arrives on the literary scene with as much chutzpah as Alan Heathcock did earlier this year with his story chronicle, Volt. The stories themselves center around the fictional town of Krafton and its inhabitants, specifically as they struggle to cope with violence and tragedy, and what Heathcock calls “the tenuous nature of peace and the pursuit of moral justice”. On the whole, this book stands proudly among the ranks of story chronicles, fragmented in its portrayal...more

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Mar 31, 2011 Virginia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011books, library, short-stories

This collection of short stories seems to me like something that would be assigned in a high school English class, since most of the stories included involve teenage boys or young men having emotional or existential crises. It seems like something that an English department would decide on to Get Teenage Boys Excited About Reading. (Although I may have judged this wrong, being out of high school for awhile and never having been a teenage boy.) It is a very masculine collection - small town with...more

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Apr 12, 2012 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wavered back and forth on giving this one four or five stars. Decided on four mostly because there were a few (only a few stories) that didn't grab me like the others. The first and last stories alone though are worth the price of admission. Oh and the second one too. This guy can write, and though the stories are typically dark and gritty, there is an underlying grace that I admired about the characters, particularly the town sheriff, Helen. Most of the stories begin with some act of violence o...more

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Dec 18, 2011 David Gallin-Parisi rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 25, 2012 David Stewart rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: true-grit

It's hard to give a collection like Volt a star rating. I think I rated it high more because I respected it because I'm not sure I liked it as much as four stars would imply. But that's not being entirely fair because I did like it, but putting my thoughts together as to why would be difficult. There is the obvious answer that it's incredibly well written, interesting, and has a deeper meaning than much of what I or anyone else reads. At the same time, it's pace is slow, deliberately, and it's n...more It's hard to give a collection like Volt a star rating. I think I rated it high more because I respected it because I'm not sure I liked it as much as four stars would imply. But that's not being entirely fair because I did like it, but putting my thoughts together as to why would be difficult. There is the obvious answer that it's incredibly well written, interesting, and has a deeper meaning than much of what I or anyone else reads. At the same time, it's pace is slow, deliberately, and it's not something those short of attention span should even attempt. In many ways it reminds me of the only Faulkner novel I ever read (most of). I wasn't a fan of Faulkner, to be honest, and while I may yet try him again in the future, the first time I read him I felt like there was nothing more boring in all the world that I could read. I did not think that about Heathcock's stories, which maybe says that I'm a more mature reader and should try out the masters of American Lit. once more. This also places Heathcock in pretty august company, and whether or not he is worthy of being among them is irrelevant because he brings them to mind.

The stories in Volt all have a common thread because they're all set in the same town. This is never explicitly declared, and I didn't realize it until about halfway through the book when I started seeing similar names and character descriptions popping up. I expected to read a book of disconnected short stories, and instead I found myself reading a pseudo-novel. The stories have no other connection than their setting and characters though, and because of that they do remain a series of stories rather than a whole story. The town these characters live in is rural and for the most part sad. In many ways it reminded me of the movie Winter's Bone, though it has lighter moments than that mostly dark film. The lighter moments revolve around people coming together in familial ways, though Heathcock manages to keep over-sentimentality from diluting his words. Death is common in these stories, and when it isn't death, it's madness of one sort or other; whether it's a man fleeing into to the woods to live a primal existence for months on end or the sheer weary, brain-numbing madness of a sheriff who has had to deal with too much in too short a time. And for anyone wanting resolutions in their story, look elsewhere, because Volt doesn't offer them. It delivers up reality in a dose most people would be uncomfortable with, and leaves things just as open ended as life does. Thankfully, it does so with words we can respect and believe. (less)

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Apr 15, 2011 Danny rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: library-book

I have a pretty good track record of not finishing short story collections. It's apparently hard for me to read in snippets--I need a big long story. But I did finish this one, because it was all compelling and stuff. (Plus it was all about people living in the same town, so that helped.)

I've got two words that I associate with this collection: Devastating and Apocalyptic.

Not that there's an apocalypse. There's definitely not. But it gives one the feeling of looking at ants in an ant farm above...more

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May 01, 2011 Casey rated it 5 of 5 stars

This collection, Alan Heathcock's first, has gotten some good press and reviews, and deservedly so. The eight stories in Volt take place in and around Krafton, a kind of any-place, and many of the stories have recurring characters. This gives the collection a unified feel, though the stories are not really "linked" in the traditional sense.

I'd seen this collection referred to as "dark" and "violent," and while there are certainly dark, violent elements (particularly in stories like "Furlough" a...more

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About Alan Heathcock

Alan Heathcock’s fiction has been published in many of America’s top magazines and journals, including Zoetrope: All-Story, Kenyon Review,VQR, Five Chapters, Storyville, and The Harvard Review. His stories have won the National Magazine Award in fiction, and have been selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories anthology. VOLT, a collection of stories published by Graywolf Press, w...more

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“No matter what you say, or how much you talk, someone isn’t really forgiven until you can stand beside them without wanting to slap them in the face.” — 18 people liked it

“Things vanished. People vanished. Clouds gave way to sun gave way to night. Only feelings, like spirits, endured, branded to the back of our eyes, laced into our marrow.” — 5 people liked it

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