In this stunning debut story collection, everyone’s got the blues but nobody is willing to sing it. Evelyn Smith, Candace Lambert, and Dorene Wahrmund chafe against rigid small-town expectations. Others in hardscrabble Nopalito find themselves fenced in–an aging gay liquor store owner estranged among his neighbors, a mother and son bound by mutual resentment, two neighboring farm boys attracted to each other. Their stories are driven by desperation, rarely spoken, that troubles the community’s inhabitants as it nudges them toward connection, toward moments of hope. Meischen draws these characters with a tenderness that belies the hardness of their lives.
“David Meischen renders entire lives with extraordinary depth, breadth, and care. Like Alice Munro and Andrea Barrett, Meischen conveys the significance of the present moment by laying bare what has come before. Nopalito, Texas: Stories is a book to savor, and this is a writer to cherish.”
~ Bret Anthony Johnston, author of We Burn Daylight