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WORK TITLE: Come West and See
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://maximtloskutoff.com/
CITY:
STATE: MT
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Male.
EDUCATION:New York University, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, carpenter, field organizer, and writing teacher.
AWARDS:Nelson Algren Award; James Merrill Fellowship; The Elizabeth George Foundation arts grant; Global Writing Fellowship in Abu Dhabi; and the M Literary Fellowship in Bangalore.
WRITINGS
Contributor of short stories to literary journals, including Ploughshares, Fiction, Southern Review, and Narrative.
SIDELIGHTS
A literary writer with an M.F.A. from New York University, Maxim Loskutoff has published stories in various literary journals, including Ploughshares, Fiction, Southern Review, and Narrative. He has received the Nelson Algren Award, a James Merrill Fellowship, and an arts grant from The Elizabeth George Foundation. When not writing, he has been a carpenter, field organizer, and writing teacher. He was raised and lives in western Montana.
In 2018, Loskutoff published, Come West and See, a collection of twelve stories about a past, present, and future American West. Some stories portray relationships between people and animals, while other stories are linked in the theme of a violent rural separatist movement in isolated regions around Idaho, Montana, and Oregon. An armed occupation of a wildlife refuge by libertarian separatists enraged at losing their place in society and determined to take a stand have instigated a new American civil war. Examining how the war affects various people, Loskutoff presents the men who enlist in the war, a mother explaining the war to her children, friends who move away, and a soldier who takes his dead comrade’s preteen daughter to an underground bunker.
Disturbed by the focus on sexuality that interferes with characters’ relationships, a Publishers Weekly reviewer, nevertheless, argued that “Loskutoff’s collection presents a chilling glimpse into a plausible future of ravaged American disunion.” In an interview with Ari Shapiro online at NPR, Loskutoff acknowledged the political and social divide among people in the West: “I think there’s contempt that both sides have for each other. And part of what I’m trying to do in these stories is to bridge that by showing how universal so many of the sort of baseline emotional struggles that people go through are—the desires for love and understanding.”
A contributor to Kirkus Reviews pointed out the themes of the federal government being an enemy of patriotic Americans, gunfire exchanges with authority, westerners feeling like strangers in their own country, and men’s dominance and abuse of animals. However, the contributor concluded that “Loskutoff writes a good sentence, has a fine eye for the meaningful detail, and spins stories that, while certainly not for every taste, are fully realized.” In Booklist, Keir Graff commented that Loskutoff is gifted at portraying outsiders, resisters, and vulnerability, adding that the author is “a writer whose powerful new voice deserves our attention.” According to Barbara Hoffert in Library Journal, “the writing is sure-footed and the disquieting sense of a world upended successfully delivered,” even if some of the stories don’t connect with the reader.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, April 1, 2018, Keir Graff, review of Come West and See, p. 50.
Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2018, review of Come West and See.
Library Journal, March 1, 2018, Barbara Hoffert, review of Come West and See.
Publishers Weekly, March 26, 2018, review of Come West and See, p. 93.
ONLINE
All Things Considered, NPR, https://www.npr.org/ (May 18, 2018), Ari Shapiro, author interview.
A graduate of New York University’s MFA program, Maxim Loskutoff has been honored with the Nelson Algren Literary Award, a Global Writing Fellowship in Abu Dhabi, and the M Literary Fellowship in Bangalore. His stories have appeared in Ploughshares, Fiction, the Southern Review, and Narrative. He lives in western Montana, where he was raised.
Maxim Loskutoff is the author of COME WEST AND SEE (Norton, 2018). A graduate of NYU’s MFA program, he was the recipient of a Global Writing Fellowship in Abu Dhabi and the M Literary Fellowship in Bangalore. Other honors include the Nelson Algren Award, a James Merrill Fellowship, and an arts grant from The Elizabeth George Foundation. He has worked as a carpenter, field organizer, and writing teacher, among many other things. He lives in western Montana, where he was raised.
The following organizations have generously supported his work: the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Jean Kennedy Smith Foundation, the M Restaurant Group, the Brush Creek Foundation, The James Merrill House, Writers Omi at Ledig House, Ox-Bow, Playa, Mineral School, Sangam House, Vermont Studio Center, Jentel Arts, Willapa Bay AiR, Caldera Art Center, Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, the Oak Springs Garden Foundation, JTHAR, and the Oregon Arts Commission.
CONTACT
AGENT: Chris Clemans | Janklow & Nesbit | cclemans@janklow.com
PUBLICITY: William Scarlett | W.W. Norton | wscarlett@wwnorton.com
< The Vast And The Violent Rural Northwest, In 'Come West And See' May 18, 201812:25 PM ET Listen· 8:00 8:00 Queue Download Embed Facebook Twitter Flipboard Email ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: The title of Maxim Loskutoff's debut story collection is an invitation or maybe a command, "Come West And See." The West he writes about his wild, aggressive and stands in stark opposition to the society that exists in places like Washington, D.C., or New York. Loskutoff grew up in that West, in Missoula, Mont. Back then, that fierce, rugged individualism didn't quite appeal to him. MAXIM LOSKUTOFF: My definition of the West was a place that I wanted to leave. I always dreamt of the cities on the coasts, the cities in other countries. And for me, these were the places where life and civilization was really happening. SHAPIRO: And so when he could leave, he did. He went to college in Los Angeles, grad school in New York, lived around the world. But eventually he was drawn back to the West and the region's struggle to define itself. He told me he even noticed this struggle as a kid in Missoula. LOSKUTOFF: There was a lot of tension between the kids whose parents were loggers or whose fathers were loggers and whose parents were professors, you know, perhaps in the environmental studies department. So for me, that tension has carried throughout my life. And when I started really sitting down to write, it was to try and express that growing chasm between the rural West and the cities on the coast. SHAPIRO: You talk about the cities overlooking the people in the more rural areas and your childhood desire to flee. One word that you didn't use but that seems to be a through line here is contempt - the contempt that people who live in the cities feel for the areas of the country that they don't understand. LOSKUTOFF: I think that's true, and I also think it cuts both ways. I think there's contempt that both sides have for each other. And part of what I'm trying to do in these stories is to bridge that by showing how universal so many of the sort of baseline emotional struggles that people go through are - the desires for love and understanding. These are just as true in Libby, Mont., as they are in Denver or Portland or New York City. SHAPIRO: But there's so much that happens in these stories that does feel alien, that feels violent and animalistic - people behaving in ways that I in my life have never seen. LOSKUTOFF: Yeah. I think that for me, another aspect of the West is being in awe of this vast landscape which is just so much bigger - it's overpowering - while at the same time wanting to control it. And so in the first story in the collection, which is in many ways foundational - it's sort of the rock dropping in the water from which the ripples spread forth. SHAPIRO: And this is the only story set in the distant past. LOSKUTOFF: Yes. And in it, a trapper falls in love with a bear - in sexual love with a bear, kind of representing the many, many animals that he's killed. And something I really wanted to express in this book is that there never was this sort of idealized time of harmony which I think both sides of the political spectrum want there to have been - this sort of moment in the West either where all the mines were running and there were good jobs and there were - you know, a man could make a living and have a family, a woman could make a living and raise her children or, on the other side, before the white people came at all, when there was this sort of state of harmony. What I'm trying to express is there was never this harmony. It's always been this incredible struggle with our urge to love the land and then our urge to tame it. SHAPIRO: When you describe a man falling in love with a bear, it sounds like that could be mythic or allegorical. And the story does not read as allegory or myth. The story is visceral and dark. And when I read it, I thought, OK, this book is going there. It's quite a way to start the reader off. LOSKUTOFF: Yeah. And to be honest, all these stories come from things that I've felt in some way. And, you know, for me, I've never fallen in sexual love with a bear, but there's this feeling that I've had when I'm out alone in the woods and there's a bear around, and it's a beautiful and exciting feeling. And it has aspects of myth, but it also has aspects of the most sort of mundane, everyday turmoil that I feel in a city or out in the woods. And so, yeah, I wanted to write this stuff. Really the only way I know how to write is to truly feel like it's happening to me or it's happening to the character. SHAPIRO: The stories in this book are loosely connected, and many of them center around a place called the Redoubt. Describe this place for us. LOSKUTOFF: The Redoubt is a place that was set aside or designated as a sort of - a place where like-minded people could move together and take over local governments and institute constitutional law, and... SHAPIRO: Air quotes there. LOSKUTOFF: Exactly, so elect - the dream would be to elect sheriffs that would only enforce laws that were explicitly written out in the constitution. SHAPIRO: Almost like a separatist stronghold preparing for a confrontation with federal authorities. LOSKUTOFF: Yes or preparing for some sort of disaster to befall this country, at which time this would be the center of a new government, a new civilization that would rise. SHAPIRO: So there are sort of separatist impulses. People are heavily armed. We've seen similar standoffs recently in Oregon and Nevada involving the Cliven Bundy family. LOSKUTOFF: Yes, exactly. And many of the people who went to Malheur came from the Redoubt. SHAPIRO: The Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon where there was a standoff with federal authorities recently - so if the world that you describe in your fiction is actually the world in which we live where there is this mutual contempt, there is this sense of fighting a world that has changed, this lack of pride, I mean, the question is, how do you fix that? How do you bridge that? LOSKUTOFF: I think that for me, the answer is the title of the book. It's to come West, and see. And so I think... SHAPIRO: But you invite the reader to come West, and see. And then what you show us is so dark and in many instances off-putting. It's hard to feel an identification with and a sympathy for some of these characters who are doing awful things. LOSKUTOFF: Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, I think that my goal for this book was to show just how much anger and darkness there is right now and which is bubbling up in this country. And for me, this is coming from this great chasm that's opened up between the - between two sides. And so, yeah, I certainly don't pretend to have the answer for bridging this chasm. I think this book for me was - it came from this really sort of sick and frightened feeling that I had watching the Malheur occupation develop and the way that it was interpreted utterly differently in Portland, Ore., where I was living when it began and then in the small town of Otis, Ore., where I moved about halfway through it. And it was something that I had felt deep inside myself before but hadn't been able to put into words. So with this book, it's more - the challenge is just to show how far things have gotten and, in the wake of that, to try and begin to bridge that gap. SHAPIRO: Maxim Loskutoff, thanks so much for talking with us today. LOSKUTOFF: Yeah, thank you. SHAPIRO: His debut short story collection is called "Come West And See."
Come West and See
Keir Graff
Booklist. 114.15 (Apr. 1, 2018): p50.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
Come West and See. By Maxim Loskutoff. May 2018. 208p. Norton, $25.95 (9780393635584).
Our relationship to animals, nature, and each other threads together the 12 stories in this arresting debut. In the opener, "Dancing Bear," set in Montana Territory, circa 1893, a lonely trapper falls in love with a bear with unpredictably disastrous results. Back in the present or near future, a relationship founders over a wounded pet coyote ("End Times"), a restless young wife plots against a looming pine ("Ways to Kill a Tree"), and a lonely nerd realizes his pet python is sizing him up for a meal ("Prey"). Recurring references to the Redoubt, a part of Idaho where an insurrection by armed militias--Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and more--has boiled over into civil war, explore the psyches of those who've lost their place in society and are determined to make a stand. Gifted at inhabiting his outsiders and resisters, Loskutoff is also capable of portraying the vulnerability of new parenthood with grace ("Stay Here"). A unique and thoughtful evocation of a past, present, and future West, by a writer whose powerful new voice deserves our attention.--Keir Graff
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Graff, Keir. "Come West and See." Booklist, 1 Apr. 2018, p. 50. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A534956857/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ac74d362. Accessed 7 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A534956857
Come West and See
Publishers Weekly. 265.13 (Mar. 26, 2018): p93.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Come West and See
Maxim Loskutoff. Norton, $25.95 (208p) ISBN 978-0-393-63558-4
Loskutoff sets his slightly disturbing debut collection in an alternate present during a new American Civil War led by libertarian Western separatists. As the rebellion in Montana hovers in the background, the author explores the motivations of those who sign up as well as those who become trapped in indecision. The media-shy widow of one of the first rebels to die tries to explain the cause to her children in "Daddy Swore an Oath." Another mother in "We're in This Together You Know, God" recounts the discovery of her daughter's tormenting of the family's horses. Socially awkward 20-something Derek frets over his snake's loss of appetite and his only friend moving away in "Prey." In "Umpqua," Russ declares his support for the rebellion to obscure his inadequacy after sparks fly between his girlfriend and a strapping Midwestern tourist. And in "Harvest," a former soldier and his dead comrade's preteen daughter hide out from federal troops in an underground bunker, though his motivations are less protective than they seem. A persistent focus on sexuality narrows the range of relationships throughout. Nevertheless, Loskutoff's collection presents a chilling glimpse into a plausible future of ravaged American disunion. (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Come West and See." Publishers Weekly, 26 Mar. 2018, p. 93. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532997128/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=68482ede. Accessed 7 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A532997128
Loskutoff, Maxim: COME WEST AND SEE
Kirkus Reviews. (Mar. 1, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Loskutoff, Maxim COME WEST AND SEE Norton (Adult Fiction) $25.95 5, 8 ISBN: 978-0-393-63558-4
Pensive, sometimes-explosive stories of life in the rural Northwest in a debut collection.
A specter hangs over Loskutoff's stories, that of a rural outback in which the federal government is decidedly an enemy and live fire is exchanged. How you feel about some of his characters ("She was a neighbor, a mother. An American. A widow") may well depend on your take on such things as the Malheur National Wildlife Reserve and Ruby Ridge; certainly some of Loskutoff's characters are committed to the idea that they are unwelcome strangers in their own land, if with peculiar ideas about what their own land constitutes. "A friend of mine got shot dead yesterday," says one character matter-of-factly, adding, "Took seven feds with them." Perhaps less controversial is Loskutoff's vision of a place in which nature is very close at hand and the violence attendant is even closer: His characters, particularly men, are often likened to beasts ("Carston made a grunting noise like a wounded animal....He was big enough that he could stomp them both, done real damage, but it wasn't in him"), and in the troubling opening story, the protagonist, having evidenced some sympathy for a grizzly bear with whom he's sharing territory, kills a cub and wears its skin as a kind of savage declaration of who's in charge. Loskutoff acknowledges the guidance of his former writing teacher David Foster Wallace, but there is not much of Wallace's complex layering (or a single footnote, for that matter) in these tales; instead, the governing tutelary spirit is more on the order of Raymond Carver with a little Bill Kittredge and, particularly in that first story, the early Barry Lopez thrown in for leavening. In any event, Loskutoff writes a good sentence, has a fine eye for the meaningful detail, and spins stories that, while certainly not for every taste, are fully realized.
A welcome arrival with the promise of good work to come.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Loskutoff, Maxim: COME WEST AND SEE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A528959981/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=4844ce38. Accessed 7 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A528959981
The Art of the Short Story. By: Hoffert, Barbara, Library Journal, 03630277, 3/1/2018, Vol. 143, Issue 4
Loskutoff, Maxim. Come West and See: Stories. Norton. May 2018. 208p. ISBN 9780393635584. $25.95; ebk. ISBN 9780393635591. F
DEBUT In this fresh first collection from Nelson Algren winner Loskutoff, refugees from civilization gather in the Northwest and sometimes violently resist intrusion. First, though, an opening story unfolding in 1890s Montana territory sets the mood; a trapper falls in love with a bear, reluctantly heads into town for female company when she hibernates, and succumbs to vicious jealousy when he returns to find she has a cub. In the present day, a desperate woman forces her boyfriend to drive her across state lines to find a vet who will treat her injured coyote, abandoning man for animal when they arrive. A fellow from Montana takes his wife to her family's cabin in Michigan, where a frightening encounter makes him realize that "the safety I dreamt of bringing Kimia, and our daughter, was only that: a dream." In the final story, another couple arrives from "traitor country" shot full of arrows even as federal soldiers gather across the mountains. VERDICT The stories don't always connect as much as one is led to expect, but the writing is sure-footed and the disquieting sense of a world upended successfully delivered.
Come West and See Imagines a Dystopian and Darkly Weird Future
Kurt B. Pitzer | May 8, 2018 | 11:26am
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A man becomes sexually attracted to a grizzly bear in the first story of Maxim Loskutoff’s debut fiction collection, Come West and See. It doesn’t end well for man or bear. But it nicely sets the stage for what’s to come: a parade of sad and luckless characters whose failure to bond with their fellow humans drives them to remote quarters, lonely obsessions and violence.
In this collection of surreal and dystopian short stories, released today by W.W. Norton, many have intense relationships with wildlife and nature. In one story, a young woman leaves her boyfriend to save a wounded coyote. In another, a college-age stoner learns from a veterinarian that his Burmese python is preparing to eat him. Then, a woman is driven to kill a massive pine tree in her front yard that she blames for her misery.
The tales are linked by a common backdrop: a reimagined West, where rural, anti-government militias have taken hold and declared a wide swath of autonomous territory — called the Redoubt — through parts of Oregon, Idaho, Montana and beyond. A lawless frontier mentality has taken hold there. Golf courses and ski resorts where rich tourists from Los Angeles once partied are deserted and pocked by airstrikes.
Although the characters all seem to know somebody who’s “joined up” with the militias, the civil war stays on the periphery through most of the book. The first exception is a piece called “Daddy Swore an Oath,” in which a woman named Lila anxiously waits for news of the death of her husband, who is leading a standoff against the government at a national wildlife refuge. It sounds like an only slightly fictionalized version of the 2016 occupation at Malheur in Oregon.
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Lila isn’t sure what to tell her two sons, other than their father swore to “uphold the Constitution,” whatever that means to him. She is aware that his rage is the product of right-wing hallucinations of “Muslim sleeper cells along the East Coast” and “Sharia law on university campuses.” But as the TV news crews descend on her home, she has to decide how she and her family will be defined.
"A man becomes sexually attracted to a grizzly bear in Maxim Loskutoff’s Come West and See. It doesn’t end well for man or bear."
W.W. Norton
The uprising gets center stage again in the final three stories. In “Too Much Love,” an unemployed builder takes up arms after his wife leaves him for a pot farmer. In “Harvest,” a surviving militiaman has spent years caring for a fallen friend’s young daughter in a bunker beneath a farmhouse. As she reaches puberty, his alarming fantasies force a test of wills.
In the closing story, “The Redoubt,” a couple stumbles out of the breakaway territory with their bodies pierced by arrows. The militiamen apparently can’t spare real ammunition on deserters. It’s the reader’s deepest insight into the Redoubt. It turns out the young protagonist’s parents are government loyalists, while his girlfriend, Mercy, comes from a family of rabid anti-government fighters, making them a sort of Romeo and Juliet of the militia world. Their escape plan, along with their efforts to outlive their arrow wounds, seems doomed when they are found near the border by a degenerate band of federal soldiers
There’s blood. Sadism. Whiskey. Dobermans. Characters with names like Spud, Cass, True and Briar. Minus any supernatural elements, Loskutoff’s is a gothic West.
The best stories involve more insidious cruelty. In “We’re in This Together You Know, God,” a mother makes a biweekly visit to her institutionalized 12-year-old daughter, Cindy, who was put “away” after years torturing the family’s animals and eventually burning down a stable full of horses. The two play Bananagrams in the silence of a padded visiting chamber, the mother in helpless anguish, afraid she’ll trigger an outburst, “sitting in a rubber chair across from my daughter. … Watching the sparks in her eyes,” when the daughter announces one of her words: "‘Kin!’"
In “Stay Here,” an interracial couple with a baby returns to the town where the woman’s father was the community’s “first Muslim.” Their relationship is vulnerable from within and without. Passersby and cops do double takes at the sight of the pair, who are working through painful episodes of deceit and infidelity. In the second half of the story, with a baby in tow, they hike hours to sunbathe on a deserted lakeside beach only to be menaced by a looming male figure silhouetted on a hill.
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SHOW ME HOW
Fans of Cormac McCarthy and Russell Banks will find plenty to like in Loskutoff's fresh voice and keen instincts for drama. There's a dry wit behind the venom, as when a couple of smokejumpers fail to see the irony of lighting M80s in the woods on their days off. Or in the tale about the woman who has it in for the tree, when the narrator gripes, "It was surprisingly impossible to order invasive pine beetles online."
And although the narration occasionally commits minor sins of over-explanation, the language is crisp and often thrilling in its plainspoken eloquence. The writing draws from a deep sense of place and character. When a medic describes a patient who experienced clairvoyance after getting shot through the skull with an arrow, and who for a bottle of whiskey would tell you where you’re going to die, the doctor's gray eyes glaze “like trout left too long in the sun.”
It’s a weirdly appropriate moment for a collection like this, with militia sentiment creeping ever closer to the mainstream and anti-government conspiracists actually in power. It should make for a lively book tour. But Come West and See isn’t trying to explain the angry rural white mindset, and beyond its premise it has much more to offer.
Kurt B. Pitzer is an author and foreign correspondent. He is a recipient of the Lange-Taylor Prize for documentary work in the Balkans and author of the nonfiction books The Bomb in My Garden and Eating With the Enemy.