Defensible Spaces

Fire plays a key role in Turner’s observant debut collection, set in the former mining town of Clayton, Colo., where a 1991 forest fire destroys the mine and museum. In the 10 linked stories, which span three decades, various characters mature and come to terms with the wreckage of their lives. In “Lifted Fire Ban,” set in the fire’s aftermath, six-year-old Elizabeth Hadford is blinded in one eye by a Roman candle lit by Ross Lucero, the 12-year-old son of her mother, Bonnie’s friend. Four years later, in “Mitigation,” a fire mitigation officer prescribes a controlled burn in a forest, prompting outrage from residents who use the area for driving four-wheelers. In “Fuel Density,” Ross, now 23, throws his energy into a hand-mucking competition, but is still haunted by his memories of maiming Elizabeth. In the title story, set in 2006, a bus driver’s new route forces an encounter with his ex-girlfriend, Bonnie, whom he’s been carefully avoiding since their breakup, while the proposed construction of new houses in the state forest threatens to obscure the Hadfords’ view. Turner’s assured prose brings emotional depth (a firework from the town display soars over the Hadfords and Luceros in the aftermath of their accident, “explod[ing] into red and white splinters that fall in a giant, drooping one-eyed stare”). This is a worthy addition to the fiction of the American West. (Feb.)