M Sarki

http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/103088095778/great-dream-of-heaven-by-sam-shepard

Sam Shepard is a natural storyteller.  And I do have my doubts over where he might have learned his craft.  In other words, I think he may be self-taught.  Comparisons have been made to Raymond Carver, but Shepard hasn’t had the sharp blade of editor Lish cutting on his page as Carver did.  Shepard simply tells his short story.  He sidesteps all the fancy adjectives, and he even tends to avoid unnecessary adverbs. He is succinct and never wordy.  Rarely do his stories ever run above ten pages.  He writes over a wide range of rugged individualist and portrays stereotypes in order to carefully make fun of them.  There are always plenty of lonely people in a Sam Shepard story.  And characters are generally in the business of looking for something they cannot find, or have. In these tales it is always better to be a self sufficient independent than a person who might be in need of something.  It is also advised to keep in constant motion so as to keep the sea legs from collapsing.  

I came to this book directly from his first, but that being the result of reading Shepard’s letters back and forth to his ex father-in-law Johnny Dark.  I had already seen some of his plays including [b:True West|206893|True West|Sam Shepard|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388256474s/206893.jpg|200243] and [b:The Late Henry Moss|974387|The Late Henry Moss|Sam Shepard|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1179931923s/974387.jpg|959284] back in 2000-2001.  I had also seen him act in several films. So I was familiar with his work in the arts. I had no doubt the man could write. And where I have read some criticism that Shepard fails at prose I had rejected these stupid comments as most likely made by some idiot who hadn’t a clue about truth and what a bit of honesty reveals in your fiction. Shepard is certainly unpretentious in his writing, but I would assume he is rather particular about who he keeps company with.  Not surprisingly, the more writing I read by Shepard the more I wanted.  That is a good problem to have as it appears he never tires of having something he will someday have get entered onto the page.

Shepard is an American treasure. A homegrown and homespun hero to me. A person more at ease with horses, dogs, and cattle in bucolic settings.  Unspoiled. Unchained.