Rachel King’s linked collection, Bratwurst Haven, stories that trace vocational and emotional bargains made by diverse, complex, and authentic characters, is available. You can buy it from Annie Bloom’s (signed!), Powell’s (signed!), Bookshop, Barnes&Noble, Amazon, or from your local bookstore.
Kirkus calls the book “an excellent collection that’s likely to appeal to fans of Alice Munro and Tobias Wolff—or to anybody with a taste for emotionally resonant short fiction.”
Rajia Hassib, author of A Pure Heart, says, “Often hovering on the cusp of some potential change, the characters in Bratwurst Haven’s beautifully written stories share a yearning for more—a better relationship or job or simply a chance to feel content. These all-too-relatable struggles make the stories not only engrossing but also an intriguing and tenderly rendered study of this flawed world we call home.”
Wendy J. Fox, author of What If We Were Somewhere Else, says, “In these twelve linked short stories, Rachel King captures the magic of the American mountain west and the people who call it home. Her characters take work in a sausage factory, pull shifts at a bar to fund their art, struggle with booze and pills, or end up with a haircut after losing at poker. They also care for one another, offering kindnesses both large and small. In Bratwurst Haven, King uncovers the complicated ways humans connect, and she gives it to us in prose that is as crystal clear as a bright Colorado day.”
Read the West Virginia University Press interview on the collection, a short essay on the collection’s “research,” a Colorado Review review of the collection, a Foreword Review of the collection, and/or an interview about King’s favorite books.
Rachel King’s novel, People Along the Sand, about the pleasures and limits of solitude for five distinct and deeply human characters, centered around the passing of the 1967 Beach Bill, the legislation that made all Oregon beaches public land, was published in 2021. You can buy it on Bookshop, Barnes&Noble, Powell’s, or Amazon, or from your local bookstore.
Kirkus calls the novel, “A revealing and contemplative tale about people tied to a wondrous, harsh landscape.”
Kathleen Rooney, author of Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey, says, “Profoundly attuned to the natural environment and its impact on all those who live there, Rachel King’s vivid People Along the Sand takes a lucid and discerning look at how people can belong to a place and whether or not a place can really belong to a person.”
Read the Oregonian‘s interview with Rachel King.
Watch/listen to a reading and discussion of People Along the Sand through Annie Bloom’s Books.
Read more about some of the influences on the novel.
Contact Rachel King at rkingpdx [at] gmail [dot] com.