A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes and Other Stories

The lush and layered stories in this delightful debut stretch from the deep darkness of Carlsbad Caverns to the light of desert stars. In Nancy J. Allen’s fierce first collection, A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes , the extraordinary emerges from the everyday. Allen’s stories are informed by the vast landscapes of New Mexico and Texas, and in them the mythic and the mundane intertwine: two neighbors burn a grandson’s letters from Vietnam in a backyard grill; a child vanishes into the maze o