Once You Break a Knuckle

Before the release of his novel Ballistics, Canadian writer Wilson built a reputation for the stories collected here: testosterone-driven coming-of-age narratives set in the rugged working-class territory of British Columbia's Kootenay Valley. Wilson clearly revels in his material: "The Mathematics of Friedrich Gauss" constitutes a crash course in the history, genealogy, and local lore of Invermere and "Valley Echo" exemplifies the way of the rifle in the shadow of the Rockies. Paternal relationships figure in stories like "The Elasticity of Bone," about father-and-son judo experts, as do long delinquent summers ("Sediment"), dirt-smeared trucks ("Big Bitchin' Cow"), and dying where the air smells of "paving salt and pine needles and the cadaverous swell of the lake" ("Don't Touch the Ground"). Like Winesburg, Ohio, characters range freely through the 12 stories, culminating in the gothic title piece (wait for the severed stag's head), which reveals Wilson to be a master of atmospheric detail: gun barrels appear about as often as bottles of Coors Light, overalls are either stained with gasoline or flecked with wood chips after a day at the sawmill, and manliness is measured in bar-fight scars. This winds up being part of the problem: despite rich and specific details, it's those same details that give the collection a feeling of oversaturation. (Jan.)