Book Review: Trouble in the Heartland, Compilation, Edited by Joe Clifford

The first thing you need to know about this compilation of short stories is that you don't have to be a Bruce Springsteen fan to enjoy it. I like Bruce Springsteen, know a few of his songs, and have heard more, but I'm no diehard. The stories in this book are inspired by Bruce Springsteen songs, yes. They have the titles of Bruce Stringsteen songs, yes. But it's what Bruce Springsteen represents: the America of the working class, of the hopes and dreams that dot the rolling countrysides and flow along the gutters of city streets. America, not as a plastic postcards, but as a tattered photographs, stained with blood and sweat in a million photo albums, naked in all its good and its bad. Not a country, but a feeling, an experience that resonates throughout the world. That's what Bruce Springsteen inspires, and the grit beneath that experience is what fills Trouble in the Heartland.

For a book like this, it's easy to name-drop and be done with it. Look at the cover if you want that. It's there. There are big names and unknowns in here. But what surprised me was the consistency of the stories. There's a current in Trouble in the Heartland that puts the rebellion and desperation, and sometimes desolation, that is uniquely American in flavor against a backdrop of small-town decline. Economic opportunity comes and goes at the barrel of a gun. Justice doesn't exist past that granite steps of courthouses. Lost love comes at terrible costs, and in the stillness of a quiet country night, someone is dying; they just don't know it yet.

I didn't want to single out favorite authors and stories. And in fact, I did jot down something about each story in the collection. I liked them all that much. But if I wrote them all down here, you'd never finish reading this. 

I've been turned on to a lot of new (new to me) writers that have incredible stories in here. You just might too.

You can purchase this book at Amazon (U.S.), Amazon (U.K.) and Barnes & Noble.