{"id":6871,"date":"2017-11-02T07:32:32","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T11:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6871"},"modified":"2017-11-02T07:32:32","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T11:32:32","slug":"the-never-open-desert-diner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6871","title":{"rendered":"*****The Never-Open Desert Diner"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Utah<\/a>

photo: Bhanu Tadinada, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

By James Anderson – This debut novel is masterfully travels a remote strip of high desert highway to all the important destinations of the human heart. Recommended by the fine folks at Scottsdale\u2019s Poisoned Pen bookshop, it checks a lot of genre boxes. It isn\u2019t typical crime fiction, though there are crimes in it. It has a nice dose of both mystery and romance. It\u2019s inescapably a Western, as it takes place in a desolate section of Utah. The one genre it doesn\u2019t draw from is science fiction, though strange things certainly do happen out there in the back of beyond.<\/p>\n

I would put this unforgettable 2015 book on my short list of \u201cmust-reads.\u201d Reviewer Patrick Anderson<\/a> in The Washington Post <\/em>calls it \u201coutstanding in every regard\u2014writing, plot, dialogue, suspense, humor, a vivid sense of place.\u201d Agreed, whole-heartedly.<\/p>\n

Ben Jones owns a business as a short-haul truck driver whose route takes him back and forth along a hundred-mile stretch of Utah highway 117, between Price and the fictional former coal-mining town of Rockmuse. (For purposes of the novel, Anderson has relocated this highway about 40 miles east of its IRL location.) He makes deliveries for FedEx, UPS, and other companies to the scattered residents along the route, and, if they put out a red handkerchief by the road, he stops to get their orders for goods to be delivered from town.<\/p>\n

Anderson sets up the isolation and the harsh conditions so effectively that Ben\u2019s description of his clients\u2014\u201cSuch folks were a special breed\u201d\u2014 is almost superfluous. You anticipate meeting some real characters hidden away out there, and you do. Chief among them is Walt Butterfield, owner-operator of The Well-Known Desert Diner, though locals have amended that to the more accurate \u201cNever-Open Desert Diner.\u201d Walt is an angry geezer who restores old motorcycles. He lost his wife years earlier after an episode with some violent customers, and the extent to which he hasn\u2019t recovered becomes apparent only over time. Each time any of Anderson\u2019s characters wander into a scene, something interesting happens.<\/p>\n

Ben happens upon a barely started housing development across the road from the diner, hidden by a rise, and containing only one house. Inhabited. The woman who lives there plays a cello with no strings, except, it transpires, those of Ben\u2019s heart. About their initial prickly contacts, Ben gives one of his typically colorful and insightful comments: \u201cI knew from experience that if you\u2019re about to do something you probably shouldn\u2019t do, the best advice you can give yourself is not to think about it too long. It ruins the surprise when the worst happens.\u201d Soon odd events begin, and the strong plot unfolds like the road in front of Ben, going toward a place not particularly desirable, but barreling toward an ending.<\/p>\n

Ben is a likeable and perceptive narrator, with especially acute radar for bullshit. Yet he looks upon the troubled and eccentric people he encounters with a nonjudgmental, compassionate eye. He respects their desire to be left alone. All of them are struggling, him included. When the world starts to open up for him, is it real or just another desert mirage?<\/p>\n

This is the kind of story that really couldn\u2019t take place anywhere but in such a remote location. The isolation engenders insights as well as eccentricity. It has those quality of literary genre work that inspire closing the book for a moment for reflection and a head-nod. The lyrical language in talking about such a dusty and forlorn place elevates the story and makes it unforgettable: \u201cThe highway ahead lolled in sunlight. It was mine and it made me happy. It didn\u2019t bother me that it was mine because no one else wanted it.\u201d
\n<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By James Anderson – This debut novel is masterfully travels a remote strip of high desert highway to all the important destinations of the human heart. Recommended by the fine folks at Scottsdale\u2019s Poisoned Pen bookshop, it checks a lot … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"*****The Never-Open Desert Diner - I put this on my short list of \"must-read\" books. Engaging, memorable, and beautifully written.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,40,3,126],"tags":[1163,1162,1164],"class_list":["post-6871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-fiction","category-mystery","category-reading-2","tag-james-anderson","tag-never-open-desert-diner","tag-utah"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1MP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6873,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6871\/revisions\/6873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}