Site Fidelity

By: Claire Boyles

Narrated by: Eva Wilhelm, Jesse Vilinsky, Pete Cross, Devon Sorvari, Stephanie Willing, David Bendena, Susie Berneis, Timothy Andrés Pabon, Hillary Huber, Piper Goodeve

Firmly rooted in the modern American West, this story collection follows women and families who feel the instinctual, inexplicable pull of a home they must work to protect from the effects of economic inequity and climate catastrophe. A 74-year-old nun turns to eco-sabotage to stop a fracking project. A woman delivers her own baby in a Nevada ghost town. A young farmer hides her chicken flock from the government during a bird-flu epidemic. An ornithologist returns home to care for her rancher father and gets caught up trying to protect a breeding group of endangered Gunnison sage grouse.

In lean, lyrical prose, Claire Boyles evokes the bleakness and beauty of our threatened Western landscapes. Spanning the decades from the 1970s to a plausible near future, Site Fidelity introduces unforgettable characters who must confront the challenges of caregiving and loss alongside the very practical impacts of fracking, water-rights law, and other agricultural policies. It is a vivid, intimate, and deeply human exploration of life on the shifting terrain of our changing planet.

©2021 Claire Boyles (P)2021 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Heard the author on NPR and was impressed!

The characters are alive and raw. The author spoke on NPR show about the through line being caregiving and rural CO living. I resonated with the concept so much that I downloaded the book immediately and very much enjoyed it.

Maybe shorts are jot my thing

I chose this book because of nature or environmental themes involved. In that regard, I liked the way animals or issues were interwoven. But I had trouble with the stories always ending up in the air. I rarely read shorts so that just may be me.