What's Wrong With You is What's Wrong With Me

by Christian Winn

Christian Winn, Idaho's Writer-in-Residence, returns with a collection of novelettes as searing and forthright as one could hope for. What's Wrong With You is What's Wrong With Me dances gracefully between characters and places with precise sentence and the care for storytelling we've come to expect in Winn's fiction. From brothers reconnecting in Eric, to field goal kick worth a million dollars in Boot, from a brother and sister's night of nostalgia through the deserts of Idaho in the title story, to a severed finger hidden shamelessly in a pocket in The Evidence of Reno, these stories shudder and glisten with mystery, longing, and hope. What's Wrong With You is What's Wrong With Me is that second book readers wait impatiently to take on, and are delighted when they have.

184 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[John Barrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

What's Wrong With You is What's Wrong With Me is that rare collection of stories that gets better as the book progresses, as you move deeper into the world Mr. Winn is exposing you to. All four of the novelettes, as they are called, could be said to deal with loss of some kind, with death looming heavy over three of the stories and the fourth, the book's final story 'Boot,' about the loss of a relationship. Yet-while the world is often seen through a gray lens, while the characters themselves are restless and unsatisfied-these are also stories of hope; stories of the strange and magical adventures one can find themselves on when they have little to lose. I've long been a fan of authors who take up the task of telling tales of the downtrodden, from Steinbeck all the way up to Sherman Alexie, and Winn's tales-deeply rooted in place, and in economic class--ably join that rank.