Beth Sanchez of Beth's Cakes - OKIE Magazine

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Salton Sea: A Collection of Short Stories George McCormick references a derelict landscape with the title of his debut short-story collection, “Salton Sea,” but shared geographies and sensibilities inhabit this work and lure the reader closer to inspect its resident characters. While the name of his work comes from an inland sea where the Colorado River breached shallow desert in in California over a century ago, McCormick sets the other memorable stories contained in “Salton Sea” in contemporary times and places them in other states Oklahoma, Montana and Idaho. McCormick explained how seeing submerged ruins that populate the “Salton Sea” in Southern California in the 1980s fascinated him and formed the idea for one story included in his published work. “It was this weird place when I see the ruins of these old hotels and things,” McCormick said. “Over the years, I would travel through there and thought it was such a strange place. First of all, I liked the sound of it, and secondly, I thought it would be a very interesting setting to have a story,” McCormick said. “I like the idea of location and place as a metaphor.” These sustained metaphors serve his stories well, especially since his characters seem to be drowning due to the vicissitudes of their lives: They work dead endjobs and deal with deteriorating relationships, but carry on and try Author George McCormick leading their lives with dignity. In the titular story, the narrator admits his marriage dissolving with the landscape. When surveying the area that surrounds the hotel where the couple once honeymooned, the narrator describes his hatred for his wife a “bitter river spilling its water,” and the algae below the water are “cumulus, bloody forms just under the surface.” These conceits course through each story in “Salton Sea,” and these details breathe vibrancy back into a barren landscape. McCormick described how his work shows his preference for writing about the past, but the author is averse to reminiscing about the better days of bygone eras. by Sarah Brewer but the stories that people tend to really person narratives that are grounded in realism and the world as we see it right now,” McCormick said. “I but I do not want to be trapped in nostalgia.” Instead of clinging to and longing for the past, McCormick allows certain sensibilities to surface elsewhere in his work, and each story crests with disappointment and desolation. Sensory language rushes in and softens the prose that surrounds the harsh situations and emotions the narrator endure when his lover leaves him when she leaves town in another story entitled “You Are Going to be a Good Man.” He thinks, “In the best possible version of things that will not happen, she will call and cry tonight. But, the sooner all that won’t happen happens, the closer I am to the black and necessary despair I know is coming. A black despair as long and white as winter.” Characters often leave each other for other opportunities in “Salton Sea,” but, like the tides, what returns is a beautiful, aching poignancy. Thus far, “Salton Sea” has won the 2011 Noemi Book Award for Fiction. One story in the book, entitled “The Mexican,” won the PEN/O. Henry Award for 2013. McCormick evokes an essence inherent in American literature authored by both John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy, but his straightforward storytelling leaves much more beyond its surface. OKIE MAGAZINE www.okiemagazine.com Page32
ACROSS 1. Value 10. What a person is called 14. 3-banded armadillo 15. Colored part of an eye 16. Is endebted to 17. Discourage 18. Air force heroes 19. Mountain pool 20. Sow 22. Small island 23. Egg cells 24. Specialty 26. Full of complexities 30. Parental brother 32. Product of bees 33. Self-employed person 37. Rectum 38. Operatic solos 39. Tiny sphere 40. Part of the Bible 42. African antelope 43. Mountain crest 44. Record player 45. Reject 47. Comes after Mi and Fah 48. Box 49. Loyalty 57. Rude person 58. Transparent 59. Portent 60. Not short 61. Ancient Greek marketplace 62. Whip mark 63. Type of sword 64. Territories DOWN 1. Dry riverbed 2. Not closed 3. Rodents 4. Tall woody plant 5. Congruity 6. Tropical vine 7. Killer whale 8. Weight loss plan 9. Colognes 10. Pronounced 11. Flooded 12. European blackbird 13. Feudal worker 21. Old World vine 25. Sick 26. Not this 27. Sharpen 28. Burden 29. Diner 30. Pee Solution on page 35 31. Tidy 33. Fuss 34. Close 35. Walking stick 36. Cocoyam 38. Willing to comply 41. Arrive (abbrev.) 42. Honorable 44. Soak 45. Foam 46. Discussion group 47. Twilled fabric 48. Put away 50. Coil 51. Solitary 52. Aquatic plant 53. A noble gas 54. Credit or playing 55. Historical periods OKIE MAGAZINE www.okiemagazine.com Page33
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