Simon Ortiz's Men on the Moon: Collected Short Stories

Book Reviews

Men on the Moon: Collected Short Stories

by Simon J. Ortiz

University of Arizona Press; $35 hard, $17.95 paper

In the most powerful of Simon J. Ortiz's stories from Men on the Moon, there's always an experience that's just beyond his characters' grasp: a vaguely remembered song, an inscrutable gesture, a half-understood compulsion to make offerings to the dead. Ortiz, a native of Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, molds stories from the echoes of Southwest pueblo life still heard behind the hum of contemporary American culture. But the best of these stories are not regional; they are about all of us, the struggles we endure to maintain connection to our communities and ourselves. In reading these stories, we sense, as Ortiz knows in his bones, that much of our cultural narcissism is derived not from self-love but from self-loathing, a hatred of our own emptiness; we have hollow places to fill. And like many of Ortiz's characters, we often fill them with alcohol, violence, and self-deception. But like them, we also sense something better in the periphery.

In one story, when a neighbor's young son, Slick, is killed in Vietnam, a character hands the neighbor, who is not Native American, an offering of tobacco, feathers, and sticks wrapped in cornhusk. ""It's for [Slick's] travel from this life among us to another place of being. -- It's for all of us, this kind of way -- you put them somewhere you think you should, someplace important that you think might be good, maybe to change life in a good way, that you think Slick would be helping us with.'" This same feeling, that a more substantial life is partially hidden from us, pervades the understated title story as well. On Father's Day, a grandson demonstrates the wonders of TV for his grandfather, Faustin. They watch one of the Apollo moon flights:

Are those men looking for something on the moon, Nana? he asked his grandson.

They're trying to find out what's on the moon, Nana. What kind of dirt and rocks there are. -- The men are looking for knowledge. --

Faustin wondered if the men had run out of places to look for knowledge on the earth. Do they know if they'll find knowledge? he asked.

They have some already. They've gone before and come back. They're going again.

Did they bring any back?

They brought back some rocks. ...

Rocks. Faustin laughed quietly. The American scientist men went to search for knowledge on the moon and they brought back rocks. He kind of thought that perhaps [his grandson] was joking with him.

Simon Ortiz is regional in the same sense that Faulkner is, and like him, Ortiz values the storyteller's collaboration with the listener, values a shared vision for what was and could be; mere telling isn't enough. And in the best stories in Men on the Moon, we experience characters' interior spaces that still resonate, however faintly, with the sounds of this shared life.

A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.

Support the Chronicle  

READ MORE
More Book Reviews
<i>Presidio</i> by Randy Kennedy
Presidio by Randy Kennedy
For his debut novel, Kennedy creates a road story that portrays the harsh West Texas terrain beautifully and fills it with sympathetic characters.

Jay Trachtenberg, Sept. 14, 2018

Hunting the Golden State Killer in <i>I'll Be Gone in the Dark</i>
Hunting the Golden State Killer in I'll Be Gone in the Dark
How Michelle McNamara tracked a killer before her untimely death

Jonelle Seitz, July 20, 2018

More by Scott Blackwood
Define 'Normal'
Define 'Normal'
Debra Monroe on the families we're born with and the families we build

May 14, 2010

Carry On, My Wayward Tongue
Carry On, My Wayward Tongue
Michael Erard on 'Um ...: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean'

Sept. 14, 2007

KEYWORDS FOR THIS STORY

Men on the Moon, Simon Ortiz

MORE IN THE ARCHIVES
One click gets you all the newsletters listed below

Breaking news, arts coverage, and daily events

Keep up with happenings around town

Kevin Curtin's bimonthly cannabis musings

Austin's queerest news and events

Eric Goodman's Austin FC column, other soccer news

Information is power. Support the free press, so we can support Austin.   Support the Chronicle