Scenes from the Heartland: Stories Based on Lithographs by Thomas Hart Benton

by Donna Baier-Stein

When a contemporary writer turns her imagination loose inside the images of an iconicartist of the past, the result is storytelling magic at its best. Here are nine tales that bring to vivid life the early decades of the 20th century as witnessed by one of America's most well-known painters. Thomas Hart Benton sketched fiddlers and farm wives, preachers and soldiers, folks gathering in dance halls and tent meetings. Though his lithographs depict the past, the real-life people he portrayed face issues that are front and center today: corruption, women's rights, racial inequality.

In these stories we enter the imagined lives of Midwesterners in the late 1930s and early 1940s. A mysterious woman dancing to fiddle music makes one small gesture of kindness that helps heal the rift of racial tensions in her small town. A man leaves his childhood home after a tragic accident and becomes involved with the big-time gamblers who have made Hot Springs, Arkansas, their summer playground. After watching her mother being sent to an insane asylum simply for grieving over a miscarriage, a girl determines to never let any man have any say over her body.

Then as now, Americans have struggled with poverty, illness, and betrayal. Thesefictions reveal our fellow countrymen and women living with grace and strong leanings toward virtue, despite the troubles that face them.

Genres: Short Stories, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Art

154 pages, Paperback

Published March 31, 2019

About the author

Donna is the author of The Silver Baron's Wife (PEN/New England Discovery Award, Foreword Reviews winner, American Book Awards Legacy Finalist, Will Rogers Medallion Award Finalist, more), Sympathetic People (Iowa Fiction Award Finalist and Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist), Sometimes You Sense the Difference (poetry chapbook), Letting Rain Have Its Say (poetry book), and Scenes from the Heartland: Stories Based on Lithographs by Thomas Hart Benton (Foreword Reviews Finalist). She was a Founding Editor of Bellevue Literary Review and founded and publishes Tiferet, an interfaith literary journal. She has received a Bread Loaf Scholarship, Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars Fellowship, grants from the New Jersey Council on the Arts and Poetry Society of Virginia, a Scholarship from the Summer Literary Seminars, and more.

Donna’s writing has been featured in NPR’s Museum Confidential, PBS’ Next Avenue, Virginia Quarterly Review, Saturday Evening Post, Writer's Digest, Confrontation, Prairie Schooner, New York Quarterly, Washingtonian, New Ohio Review, and many other journals as well as in the anthologies I've Always Meant to Tell You (Pocket Books), To Fathers: What I've Never Said (featured in O Magazine), Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort During the Time of COVID-19 (Central Avenue), The Art of Touch: A Collection of Prose and Poetry from the Pandemic and Beyond (University of Georgia Press).

Highlights of Donna’s career have been seeing one of her short stories performed by Tony Award winning actress MaryAnn Plunkett at the Playwrights Theatre in Madison, NJ, and three of her stories-turned-into-plays read at the Salmagundi Club in Manhattan. Her short story "On the Banks of the Save" has been a quarter-finalist in the ScreenCraft Short Story Awards.
In an earlier incarnation, Donna was an award-winning copywriter for Smithsonian, Time-Life, World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and many other environmental and nonprofit clients in the direct marketing industry.

Reviews

[Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Donna Baier Stein has written nine short stories in Scenes from the Heartland. Each story is inspired by a lithograph painted by Thomas Hart Benton in the early twentieth century. Each painting depicts everyday life at the time with dancing, music, and gatherings.

Baier Stein’s stories add life to the paintings, and the lives behind the depictions are portrayed in sparse, but powerful, prose. The characters are confronting issues still prevalent today, including racism and women’s rights.

I found the stories to be complex and bravely told. Anyone who is a fan of artwork from this time period would likely be fascinated with these depictions. I love the fact that Baier Stein tackled this because I’ve often looked at paintings and wondered the story or inspiration behind it. In this case, she has written it for us. Overall, these are strong and realistic stories I enjoyed reading.

I received a complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.

My reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com

[Kate Vocke (bookapotamus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you guys have any hobbies (other than reading of course!) that you love?

I’ve been a doodler since I was little, it was a big reason I went to art school and pursued a career in design. I’ve always had a love of art and culture and was thrilled to receive this book of short stories based on lithographs by the beloved artist Thomas Hart Benton.

I immediately pulled out all my college art books to have the paintings vividly brought to life around me, to supplement the beautiful imagery that is also provided throughout the book, as I read these incredible stories Donna Baier Stein has dreamed up. She fabricates the most vivid narratives to paint a picture of what life was like in the early 1900’s midwest - they come to life before our eyes and transport us to a time of racial inequality, war and suffering, poverty and illness.

How often have you seen a painting or a sculpture and wish you know the story behind it? You can search a portraits eyes and wish for a glint of what is going on in their mind, or wonder about a composition and what the artist was thinking as they compiled their thoughts and visions to canvas? These 9 stories, based on 9 of Benton’s lithographs transports you right into the heart of the art, and you’ll want to stay there.

This collection warmed my artist heart and also made me realize how art can be so subjective and personal. And also how different life was back then, but how all the struggles seem all too familiar present day.

[William Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Donna Baier-Stein captures the heart of middle America. The concept of writing stories based on the lithographs of an artist is great in itself, and all of the nine short stories are masterfully written. For me, each story gets more interesting as the book progresses. I actually prefer the final four stories. "Spring, 1933" was my favorite. I look forward to reading more of this author's work soon!

[Sherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Look for my review in the May issue of the Historical Novels Review.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the very first sentences, I was in love with these stories by this very gifted, compassionate and truly nuanced author. Set over a little more than twenty years in the American midlands (about 1920-1942), the people's circumstances in small towns and humble jobs are limited in scope. It is hard to understand as I write today from New York City with my iPhone and computer where our daily world is international and drenched with every culture, how it must have been like to live in the Depression and the days of war in a place of flood and dust storms in small midwestern towns where the center of life is often the church and news of the world slowly filters in. I loved the stories, I loved the people....and the author is equally gifted in what she quietly remarks on which defines a life (a cheap pair of eyeglasses which don't really work) and what she does not say: the possible chasm before her if an innocent little girl is chosen to go on a school trip, the manly young sons who go off to save people in a flood and leave their mothers and the reader waiting for them to walk back through the door again. The love between husband and wife, though an old thing. You care so much for these people, you can't quite let them go. They are the real us under all our instant internet access... they are the images in the mirror we are forgetting until those moments when we pause and feel them. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

[Angelle Barbazon · Rating 5 out of 5]

With "Scenes from the Heartland," Donna Baier Stein dives into the world of ekphrastic fiction with finesse. Inspired by the art of Midwestern artist Thomas Hart Benton, she writes stories as colorful as his paintings depicting America’s rich culture and cross section of citizens. Each story featured in "Scenes from the Heartland" is as beautifully written as the next, and I could see this book being a great read for book clubs, sparking lively conversations about class, race, the roles of men and women and other important topics. Highly recommended!

[Marissa DeCuir · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Donna Baier Stein’s “Scenes from the Heartland”, each chapter of this beautifully written book introduces a new character so that the reader is given a glimpse into the lives of both men and women that are each struggling with something, whether big or small. Each is drastically different; within these little episodes in each character’s life, she touches on racism, adultery, poverty, and grief. Stein certainly has a unparalleled talent for storytelling.

[abdulia ortiz-perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book for honest Review.

Scenes From The Heartland
(Stories Based on Lithographs by Thomas Hart Benton) by Donna Baier Stein @donnabaierstein
#scenesfromtheheartland

I read this book in one day.
I love the pictures in it and how it tells a story in it. I love how short story is told. I feel is perfect for a report for school. Anybody who love art and love looking at them and stories of them this is perfect. My two kids love this cuz they both love art work and stories about art work. This is just perfect for my kids to do a report on history of the artwork. There always a story behind somebody artwork.
I highly recommend it.
5 star read ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you @suzyapprovedbookreviews @suzyapprovedbooktours
for the free copy.
#suzyapprovedbookreviews

[Leslie Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

What happens when a contemporary writer of semi-autobiographical short fiction turns her gaze to the iconic images of America's past? This glimmering collection, SCENES FROM THE HEARTLAND emerges.

I'm a sucker for anything Missouri, anything Midwest. That's probably because this strange little state smack in the U.S. is what shaped me, the place I still think of as 'home,' even though I've lived elsewhere more than half my life now. There's a realness, an authenticity to the state, which is a conglomeration of everything and nothing--North, South, East, and West. It has the rolling Ozark mountains, the winding Mississippi, big cities and tiny ones, wealth and poverty. To be a Missourian is to contain multitudes. So when I heard about SCENES FROM THE HEARTLAND (Serving House Books, March 31 2019), I knew I had to read it.

The reader enters the imagined landscape of one of the most well-known American painters, Thomas Hart Benton, slipping back to the 1930s and 1940s to Southern Missouri, Arkansas, SW Illinois, St. Louis, Kansas City, Hannibal, and more. We meet mothers and fathers, fiddlers, and preachers. There are children with rings of dirt around their heels because their mothers died and their fathers are not tending to them, others, too whose mothers have been sent to an asylum. There are soldiers on their way to war and gamblers who have made their fortune. Maybe.

These nine tales are raw, authentic, and vivid, pulling the reader deep into the dusty confines of the early twentieth century. Many of the themes explored in SCENES FROM THE HEARTLAND are timely and topical in today's world--racial tensions, loss/grief, war, mental asylum, determination/grit, poverty, and illness. Generally, they are tough, bleak reads and mostly center around some kind of loss--I was hoping for a little lightness, but perhaps that's not the aim of this collection.

Still, I am in awe at Baier-Stein's creativity, her ability to draw art from art, and that alone is a delightful undertaking.

In all honesty, I am not sure I have read anything quite like SCENES FROM THE HEARTLAND, but perhaps there might be some overlap in Christina Baker Kline's A PIECE OF THE WORLD (based on the people who inspired a piece of Andrew Wyeth's art) meets Marion Winik's THE BALTIMORE BOOK OF THE DEAD.

For all my reviews, including author interviews, please see: www.leslielindsay|Always with a Book
Special thanks to Kathleen Carter Communications and the author for this review copy. All thoughts are my own.

[Bonnye Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most everyone is familiar with the lithographs of Thomas Hart Benton. Once you have seen them, you remember them - they are very distinctive and tell an intense story. Well, peanut butter, meet jelly. Donna Baier-Stein has written short stories to bring these lithographs to life. Stories that will break your heart. It would be very hard to pick a favorite, but I truly loved Morning Train. And Trouble at the Dance Hall. And For Her Own Good.

I am very pleased to be able to recommend this collection to friends and family. This is a book to treasure and read again.

I received a free electronic copy of this excellent collection of stories on February 22 from Netgalley, Donna Baier-Stein, and Serving House Books. I have read and enjoyed this collection of stories of my own volition. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. This is my honest opinion of this work.

Reviewed on April 22, 2019, Goodreads, Netgalley, Amazon. Smile, Barnes & Noble, and BookBub.

[Shani · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are so many layers to art, different mediums, and interpretations. The very fact that someone can look at a piece and spin a story is utterly fascinating to me. I love a good story!

The author shares not only the stories but pictures of the inspiring lithographs. In them, you can get lost in the details of the strokes of movement. When you read the corresponding story it adds details in your mind. For example, in one of the stories, "For her own good" I kept flipping back to the picture. "Going Home" art piece depicts two children on the back of a wagon looking down as if sad or other negative emotions. As the story goes on, and the two children talk about their experiences with their mother being taken away for "women problems" as their father says, it's easy to close your eyes and see that picture again. It gives off the emotions and adds a layer to what these two are feeling. Not only do they have to live with the fact they have an absent parent, but a despondent one as well. They don't understand the way things work around them and why people can be so cruel. The last part when the truth is let out by heartless people makes you feel their emotions even more. You can look at the art piece and really connect with the emotions there.

Another story talks about the split between society and how tragedy can strike and change everything in one moment. It's not as black and white as the illustrations you're viewing. It's a beautifully done story to accompany it and makes you really think.

Creativity, in general, can be such a beautiful addition to everyone. I see these stories by the author inspiring to take the time to really study different forms of art and find a new appreciation for them.

I really enjoyed the lessons in the stories and the beautiful art they were inspired by. It teaches you a little, adds some inspiration and makes you think. Well done!

[Molly Jaber (Audiobooks And Sweet Tea) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who is Thomas Hart Benton? Someone I've never heard of for sure. But, I knew who he was when I was finished with this cleverly written book! He was an artist that took everyday people he saw in history and created images for them. Donna Baeir Stein is an author who took some of his Lithographs, and created her stories for them.

Each of the stories is created beautifully. The image of each story is portrayed in detail within the story that Baier Stein created, and as I sat reading each one, I was transported to a different time and place. That's skill, if you ask me! I loved reading each one and watching the images dance in my head. Her story telling ability is on point with this book.

Donna Baier Stein is truly talented. The way she created this book was refreshing. I definitely am getting copies of this book to share with friends and family! It's an interesting read and definitely captivating. If you want a 5 star read from an author who truly and beautifully uses a masterful skill to create imaginative stories around them, then look no further! I will definitely be checking out more of Baier Stein's work in the furture!

*I received a complimentary copy of this book from publisher and was under no obligation to post a review, positive or negative.*

[Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 Reasons to Read Scenes from the Heartland
• If you love a good campfire story, you will love this book. Based on lithographs by Thomas Hart Benton from the early twentieth century, Donna Baier Stein spins nine tales that give a perfect campfire feel.
• Though the stories can each stand on their own, they are also tied together in a beautiful thematic way. These nine stories, each based on a picture, cover themes of hardship, love, equality, and faith during a time that is a cornerstone in history.
• The book is truly a piece of art. Not only does each chapter open with an actual piece of artwork, but the stories told within capture so beautifully what the scene depicts. It is a blending of art in the form of written word and picture.
• If you’re looking for something a little deeper than a beach read or a rom com, this is a good choice. The stories delve deep into some heartwarming and heart-wrenching times.
• It’s a quickie. Topping off at less than 150 pages, this is a one sitting read. If you need to beef up your monthly list, grab this one.

[Linda Zagon · Rating 4 out of 5]

 Based on "Scenes From the Heartland: Stories Based on Lithographs" by Thomas Hart Benton, written by Donna Baier Stein, readers get the combination  or marriage of Artistic Achievement plus a Literary Interpretation  and Storytelling. Donna Baier Stein vividly describes the lithographs she views with her amazing storytelling skills.  There are about nine stories to match the number of lithographs. 

Thomas Hart Benton describes through his paintings, and art, times of American History in the 1930's and 1940's.  We get to see the importance of music, and dance, and the political climate of the time.

Donna Baier Stein depicts her writing skills to create each scene with a story. I found many of the stories intriguing and captivating. Donna Baier Stein, writes about slavery, poverty, inequality and many other important topics of the time. There are problems, and the author depicts the courage and faith that people have to adapt. I would recommend this unique book of stories, for readers who enjoy history.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the Publisher: “When a contemporary writer turns her imagination loose inside the images of an iconic artist of the past, the result is storytelling magic at its best…Then as now, Americans have struggled with poverty, illness and betrayal. These fictions reveal our fellow countrymen and women living with grace and strong leanings toward virtue, despite the troubles that face them”
Before I received a copy of Scenes from the Heartland, I was familiar with the lithographs of Thomas Hart Benton. The stories Benton tells in his art are vivid depictions of rural life in the early 20th century. I felt his lithographs absolutely come alive in the 9 short stories Donna Baier-Stein has written.

It is so hard to mention a favorite story, the stories of life in America’s heartland are all wonderful, but I would choose The Sweet Perfume of Somewhere Else and Under the Weight of His Mothers Body. All 9 stories are well written and capture a time and a place in a way that I know you’ll enjoy reading as I did.

Thank you Donna Baier Stein for the complimentary copy, I enjoyed every minute

[Susan Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scenes from the Heartland is a brilliantly-conceived idea, a series of short stories based on lithographs by Thomas Hart Benton. The stories, like the lithographs that inspired them, give us an honest portrait of life in the Midwest in the early 20th century. These are stories of hardships and survival, war and peace, bigotry and kindness, that capture the essence of the time, the place, and especially the people.

[Books Forward · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Scenes from the Heartland” is a collection of short stories that illustrate life in the era before World War II began. Donna Baier-Stein creates absolute storytelling magic by using Thomas Hart Benton’s lithographs to create beautifully moving stories behind each character. Stein eloquently addresses topics that are still prevalent today. In doing so, she ties together the past and the present through relatable, real-life characters that each reader will find themselves emotionally attached to by the end of each chapter. This is a wonderfully unique read!

[J.V.L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Donna Baier Stein's anthology, Scenes from the Heartland, is a delightful mix of stories filled with humor, history, and hardships. They bring Thomas Hart Benton's images to life and remain with you long after you finish the anthology. Beautifully written and vivid, each story is a tribute to the artwork it describes.

[Laura • lauralovestoread · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable read that I was able to read in a day and really enjoyed it! The photos are so beautiful and insightful. Nine stories told from America’s Midwest during the 1930’s and 40’s, using lithograph sketches to touch on subjects like corruption, women’s rights, and racial inequality. One of my favorite of the stories was Trouble at the Dancehall.

[Alicia Bay Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you, Donna Baier Stein, for time travel by passenger train, horse-drawn cart and even a flying turquoise Ford Tudor automobile, into a lovingly researched, often terrifying, world of rural America in the Big Band era. Each of the nine stories wring compassion from the reader for survivors of harsh circumstances, as well as engender sincere appreciation for Ms. Stein’s choice of the lithographs by Thomas Hart Benton to inspire her fascinating tales.

[Priscilla Orr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scenes from the Heartland haunted me. I had to read slowly because the stories (and the artwork) were so powerful, that the characters stayed with me for days. The subtle deft way in which Baier-Stein conveys the inner lives of the characters evoked their desolation, their lost dreams, their hope, and the courageous way they came to understand their lives and one another. I highly recommend this book.

[Candy Mayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an artist, I loved the stories based on Benton's art! Only thing I don't like about short stories...they end too soon and I want them to go on!

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of artwork-generated storytelling presents a wonderful approach to historical fiction. The idea to create Americana type fictions based on Thomas Hart Benton's creative mid-western scenarios represents an intriguing starting point for creative interpretation. Although the early to mid-twentieth century tends to present a difficult historical era, most of us want to romanticize it a bit and look for the positive themes of determination, resiliency, love, etc. Ms. Stein, who admits to putting an auto-biographical spin on things, portrays a somewhat more negative interpretation and left me a bit depressed. Maybe her approach presents a more realistic version, but, I am searching to find a positive recollection too. I have a feeling though, that these short creations will stick in my mind longer due to their problematic and challenging realities. Either way, this collection entertains, enlightens and does not disappoint.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

How often have you seen a painting or a sculpture and wished you knew the story behind it? In SCENES FROM THE HEARTLAND Donna Baier Stein creates fictional histories of nine lithographs by one of the most well-known American painters, Thomas Hart Benton. The fluid characters in his paintings show everyday people in scenes of life in the United States. Each of Baier Stein's stories opens with the picture of one of Benton's most familiar lithographs and is the jumping off point for a short story.
From the very first sentences I was in love with these pieces. Set over a little more than twenty years in the American midlands (about 1920-1942), we are dropped into Southern Missouri, Arkansas, SW Illinois, St. Louis, Kansas City and Hannibal, Missouri. We meet mothers and fathers, fiddlers and unkempt, dirty children with no parent to take care of them. Short enough to be considered anecdotes of soldiers, gamblers, musicians and preachers, both artist and author depict everyday life through dancing, music, and gatherings.  We instantly recognize how different life was and yet the characters are confronting issues still prevalent today. The stories are gritty and real. There are no fairy tale endings.
Whether you are a lover of Benton’s lithographs or have no knowledge of his work, these images come to life through Baier Stein’s fruitful imagination. In this particular period of America, Baier Stein takes us beyond the boundaries of the canvas, into places perhaps even Hart Benton didn't foresee with such depth of scope. She is a precise writer with a wide lens.
In 'Trouble at the Dance Hall' (also the book cover image) we learn about Rufus, a black lifelong resident of Pangburn's shantytown. Rufus has heard gossip of a black laborer being killed by farmworkers “and someone posting a sign over on Route 10 warning Negroes to be out of town by sundown.” Rufus' stomach clenches because he has nowhere else to go and knows he will stay in his shack even if they burn it down around him. He simply starts playing he beloved fiddle. “As he played and sang, Rufus watched the blond woman [Maisie] still dancing in the middle of the room... As Rufus came to the last stanza of 'Sourwood Mountain,' Maisie caught him staring..." (No, I am not going to spoil the ending, there is too much to this story.)




From the very first sentences, I knew I was going to love these stories by the very talented and compassionate author Donna Baier Stein. She brings to life what it must have been like to live in the Depression and war . We experience floods and dust storms in small midwestern towns where the center of life is often the church and news of the world arrives slowly. In Baier Stein's glimpses of people, her spare but telling remarks to define their lives. We read about the “cheap pair of eyeglasses which don't really work” and “manly young sons who go off to save people in a flood and leave their mothers and the reader waiting for them to walk back through the door again.” You care so much for these people, you can't let them go. They are the real us. They are the images in the mirror we are forgetting until those moments when we pause and feel them.
A young girl's mother is sent away to a mental asylum for sadness over a miscarriage. An African American fiddler is beaten up for no other reason than his race and his ability to make people dance. Baier Stein’s writing will draw you into the heart of each story. Her gift as a writer for getting her characters, as well as her narrative voice, to realistically reveal another era in a mystical place — the heartland of America.
Another story talks about the split between society and how tragedy can strike and change everything in one moment. Life is never as black and white as the illustrations that Thomas Hart Benton painted.
I have always been a novice admirer of Thomas Hart Benton's work. Looking at the inspiring lithographs it would be easy to get lost in the details of his skill. Benton had deep roots in Missouri, an almost mythical state because of its location in the literal middle of the country. In his lithographs, he wanted every small town to be Everyone's Hometown and every child to be Everyone's Child. Baier Stein accomplished that same feeling in her short stories. Each story becomes Everyone's Story. Like Benton, Baier Stein gives us tactile detail that set us down in a particular time and place but keeps those details at a minimum so that her story is real to any time and place.
You can look at the art piece and easily connect with the emotions there. For example, in one of the stories, "For her own good" Baier Stein picks "Going Home," an art piece depicting two children on the back of a wagon looking down as if sad. The story goes on, and the two children talk about their experiences with their mother being taken away for "women problems" as their father says. Both the story and the lithograph give off emotions but Baier Stein adds a layer to what these two are feeling. Not only do they have to live with the fact they have an absent parent, but a despondent one as well. They don't understand the way things work around them and why people can be so cruel.
The first time I read SCENES FROM THE HEARTLAND I read it in one day. The second time I slowed down and savored every line Donna Baier Stein had created, looking differently into the moving lithographs of Thomas Hart Benton. Visiting Baier Stein's Heartland is like walking into a mini-gallery of good visual and literary art.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A standard writing exercise consists of taking an image and writing a description of it. Sometimes this can lead to more, especially as one comes to know the scene or the persons inside the image. This was essentially the process the Stein went through in writing this book. The title of this collection, thus, is an apt one. The scenes here, however, are not photographs but lithographs, all of them created by Thomas Hart Benton, an artist whose work I have only lightly been familiar with before. As an exercise, each story finds success at putting a story to the image. Stein descends into the lives of each character in each piece.

In her afterword, the author notes that she wanted to get out of herself, to write about things that were less familiar to her. The lithographs were a means toward this. The exercise resulted in some very heartfelt meditations. That said, there's a part of me that felt like most of the stories strained at times to overcome a setting in time and place that was not the author's own--by that I mean that many of the tales, while well researched, seemed impersonal and even, to an extent, to fall back on the kind of Hollywood stereotypes one would expect when looking at the image rather than thrusting readers into something unfamiliar and extraordinary.

The best stories, though, do manage to do something to that effect. The most impressive of all is the opener, "A Landing Called Compromise," a tale that seems deceptively mundane but that builds to a great emotional catharsis.

"Trouble at the Dance Hall" explores racial relations at a country bar.

The title "Morning Train" is a play on words, as the story concerns a family whose son is about to go off to war, to the mom's grief and consternation.

"Pointing East, Where Things Happen" revolves around a revival meeting and concerns about faithfulness.

"For Her Own Good" focuses on two children whose father sends his wife (their mother) away for "woman troubles"--as in she has grown dispondent and doesn't do her chores in a satisfactory way. The children, of course, don't care about this--they want mom, and they want to enjoy the fair that they were promised to be able to attend. There's a grief and sorrow that runs throughout this piece, though it's not quite as finally crafted as in some other pieces.

In "The Sweet Perfume of Somewhere Else," it hasn't rained in a long while, and the main character dreams of being somewhere else--or more specifically being with someone else, her teacher. But what she wants proves not to be what she imagined, and the story makes an awful turn that has the girl wishing for childhood.

"Prodigal Son" is a heartbreaking tale about a son who has difficulty dealing with an injury to his father, in some sense blaming himself. The difficulty causes him to desert his family when it needs him most--this for a woman who becomes a quick study in booze and grift. One of the best in the collection.

"Spring 1933" focuses on lost love an abusive father/husband.

The collection ends strongly with "Under the Weight of His Mother's Body," this one about a woman who marries beneath her expectations. I love a story that ends with an opening--especially to more trouble and concern. I'm reminded of a Raymond Carver story called "Neighbors," which ends with a couple who has been doing a bit more than house sitting when taking journeys into another person's house being locked out. That moment bears so much more than the simple pressing against the door. In this tale, an orphan from a small town named Arthur falls for a woman in the big city. A kind man, he's not ready for the demands this woman will make of him or for the demands his small town will either for that matter.

Some common tropes arise throughout the stories. At least two men marry women who then descend into various levels of alcoholism. At least two women mourn over sons. At least two fathers prove abusive of their families to various degrees. In fact, if one were to craft a common trajectory in the stories, it is one of disappointment with life's expectations and hopes. That's not to say the stories are all gloomy--in many cases, the characters find something redeeming among the sad events. Another things Stein does well by the collection is to present us with a view of a community at a particular time and place, the kind of linking that I often enjoy in story collections.

[whatsjennareading · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scenes from the Heartland is a fascinating short story collection based on a series of lithographs created by Thomas Hart Benton. Set in Missouri and Arkansas in the 1930s and 40s, Stein has created stories inspired entirely by these snapshots in time. While not typically the type of book I’m drawn to, my imagination was captured by the idea that these fictional stories had been inspired by real moments in history. I’m so glad I took a chance with this one because the stories are each powerful and unique and created vivid and sometimes visceral reactions to the lives playing out on the pages.

I especially enjoyed the way Stein focused on women and children and the way their lives were shaped and controlled by the men in them. She perfectly portrayed the agony of watching a son go away to war, the blind rage and terror of being held hostage by an abusive husband, and the longing of a life untethered by children and marriage. While I enjoyed all of the stories, the three that stood out for me the most were, A Landing Called Compromise, Morning Train, and For Her Own Good. The first is about a church that straddled the state lines between Missouri and Kentucky and the way the townspeople are forced together during a deadly flood. Morning Train tells the story of a young mother in the days leading up to seeing her son off to war and is largely spent reminiscing about the times when he was still young. Finally, in For Your Own Good, Stein tells the story from a young girl’s perspective after her father has her mother committed to an asylum because he no longer wants to deal with her grief over a recent miscarriage.

Stein tackles so many heavy topics in these stories including, alcoholism, abuse, racism, poverty, and sexual inequality. Each story completely transported me to another time and place and had me wholly invested in the fate of the characters. I have no doubt these stories will stay with me for a very long time. Lovers of history and short stories will surely enjoy this book, but I think there is likely something for everyone within these nine tales.

Thank you so much to Donna Baier Stein and JKS Communications for the review copy in exchange for my honest review!

[Karina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scenes from the Heartland: Stories Based on Lithographs by Thomas Hart Benton by Donna Baier Stein. Have you ever opened a book with pictures and thought what stories I could tell about those pictures. Well that is exactly what Donna does in Scenes from the Heartland. If you are not familiar with Thomas Hart Benton’s artwork he was famous for showing ordinary people doing common things. His paintings tell a story, Donna Baier Stein has taken about nine of his lithographs and has written stories to make them come alive. She looks at a lithograph and writes what she sees her storytelling is amazing. Her stories are short but they are intriguing the way she tells these stories makes one aware of the life before the war you live the heartbreak, hear the music and see the dancing. There is no sugarcoating these scenes from the 1930’s and 40’s by Donna. This book was a very enjoyable and quick read. It does open up ones imagination to look at a picture and tell a story to make it come alive. It was a nice history lesson for me.

[Elizabeth Kaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s so much life between these covers!

Haunting and compelling, these stories by Donna Baier Stein draw their inspiration from Thomas Hart Benton lithographs showing Missouri folks in the 1930s taking life on the chin: floods, sudden death, grinding poverty. Or kicking up their heels, as young boys ride a frisky horse in the spring or couples canoodle to fiddle tunes at the dance hall. Stein taps into the power of Benton’s art at a visceral level, and she make us feel the ache of yearning, the slap of unexpected betrayal, even the shock of guilty self-awareness. This is life doubly explored and brought vividly alive—through words and drawings—so that we feel these characters’ joys and sorrows fresh in our own lives.

[Elizabeth Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

In SCENES FROM THE HEARTLAND, Donna Baier Stein fills out the smallest details of Thomas Hart Benton’s black and white lithographic drawings that surge with energy...energy in figures, landscapes and interiors.

And she does so with words that imagine possibility with the somber colors of reality.

I was happily drawn into the atmosphere of the time and place and turned the last page in sympathy with the people and their experiences.

I was amazed at how she could create such personal stories. It was as though she stepped into the life of each painting. I loved the book!

[Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the tales in this book. I remember a music teacher back in grade school putting on music and asking us to create a painting, drawing, some type of art work, as the music inspired us. I love the idea of painting inspired stories! And, as a perk, the stories are short, so good for when time is limited and a story is needed! This has great tales with it, both based on reality and fantasy. It would make a great gift for someone with ties to Missouri, or short story lover.

I received a Kindle arc from Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.