Utah Died for Your Sins

"You might have heard, somewhere in October, this way to hunt deer." Whenever I read this story to an audience -- a SUNY Writers Conference, a classroom or coffee house, the PEN New Writers Series -- I can always count on some people to head for the exit before I get through the opening paragraph. I've never blamed them. It's a graphic story. In places it's a brutal story. And it hits the ground running. But it also finds beauty in the least expected ways. It takes two American rituals -- hunting deer and customizing cars -- and slams them up against each other to see what happens. Where they'll lead. If they'll find common ground. If and where and how they can resolve into the voice of a single story. Where they find common ground is in their dissonant mix -- steel and flesh and neon -- of cruelty and innocence. Where they lead is wherever a razor blade can be put to yet another use. Where they resolve, in what John Gardner called "a terrible, beautiful story," is where the razor blade finds its final purpose as an instrument of retribution, the node of an animal becomes its tongue, and a dirt bike takes its fated rider up a deer trail into the October hills in search of water. Ride out the opening paragraph. It has always been worth it.

After its nomination by Raymond Carver, who redefined the short story for us, "Utah Died for Your Sins" went on to win the Pushcart Prize. In its review of the Pushcart Prize anthology, Rolling Stone magazine singled out its author as "a raw new voice in American fiction."