A Simplified Map of the Real World

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

“Stevan Allred’s stories strike to the very heart—the pathos, the humor, the hope—of the American frontier.  He is OUT there. Raymond Carver would love this book.” — Robin Cody, author of Ricochet River

“In modest homes, over dinners, through divorces and the decades, we meet brothers, neighbors, daughters, soldiers, old friends, and longtime rivals. From one story to another, through the years, these everyday people may be villains and then victims, painted with the same brush but viewed from different angles, in different light.” — Brian Juenemann, The Register-Guard

“Stevan Allred’s characters are delightfully wrong-headed. They make questionable choices—sometimes terrible ones—and get themselves into all kinds of trouble. But the worse their mistakes, the more I care for them, because beyond their difficulties what Allred gives them is the essential dignity of longing. No matter how misguided, all strive toward some ideal, and no matter what mess they make of their circumstances, they end up more alive for having given themselves over to desire. To read their stories is to journey through passions that transcend the confinements of small town life—and it’s a journey that’s by turns funny, surprising, and heartbreaking.” — Scott Nadelson, author of The Next Scott Nadelson

“Funny, sensual, piercing, honest, witty, and a braided woven webbed stitch of stories and people unlike anything I ever read. It catches something deep and true about the brave and nutty shaggy defiant grace of this place. Fun to read and funner to recommend.” — Brian Doyle, author of Mink River

“You don’t need to be from a small Oregon town to recognize Stevan Allred’s characters. They are your mother, your father, your cousin Cathy. And probably more than you’d like to admit, they even feel a bit like you. A Simplified Map of the Real World is a highly-skilled collection of interwoven stories, surprising in its various styles and voices. But the real surprise is how close Stevan Allred gets to the beating heart of what it means to be human. Petty, profane, sacred, scared, hilarious. We’re all in this book. And that’s quite a triumph.” — Tom Spanbauer, author of The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon

“Death and high jinks, love and rage—the ordinary doings of a small town are not so simple. Stevan Allred has clear vision and he’s a loving and joyful teller of tales. In his hands, these voices are angry, foolish, wise, heartbroken, and true.” — Joanna Rose, author of Little Miss Strange

“For years I’ve been teaching Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty in my Literature of the South class and didn’t think there was a short story writer who held up next to these two. Well, finishing A Simplified Map, I put Stevan Allred with them.” — Michael Strelow, author of Henry: A Novel of Beer and Love in the West

“Much like being ambushed by a sneaker wave, I simply surrendered to the futile and claustrophobic circumstances Allred forces the community of Renata to endure in this linked collection. As human beings we all know there are two sides—or multiple ones—to every story, and as readers, it’s pure indulgence to experience Allred’s deft ability to shift between various points of view to give us a 360-degree perspective of the intertwining lives of his characters as they meet head-on their spectrum of woes, each more heartbreaking than the last.” — Polly Dugan, author of So Much a Part of You

“In A Simplified Map of the Real World, Stevan Allred creates one of the unforgettable locales of modern fiction—Renata, Oregon, a small town that takes us to the largest places in the heart. The people of Renata struggle with broken dams and families, with dangerous curves in roads and marriages, and with dreams that are both reckless and brave. These are stories as beautiful and honest as the landscape Allred loves. Gorgeously written, A Simplified Map of the Real World will make you wonder why you haven’t been reading Stevan Allred all your life.” — Scott Sparling, author of Wire to Wire

“The characters populating these stories have been enduring time and weather and hardship for a long time. People and  forces they can’t control cut them down. Wives leave them. Friends betray them. Fathers refuse to understand them. But these people have a refreshing, ecological knowledge that there is always something to be done to make your own world complete again, at least for a minute.” — Maria Anderson, reviewer at Necessary Fiction

“Beautifully crafted and marked by incisive wit, Allred’s fifteen interlinked short stories reveal the rich, dark tangle of events and emotions that lie beneath everyday happenings in small-town America, unearthing the sibling rivalries simmering beneath the surface of apparent conviviality, the devastation of divorce, the deadening sadness that follows, and the way innocent young people awaken into first love.” — Kristine Morris, reviewer at Foreword Reviews

“I don’t know how he works his magic—probably naked at the typewriter or some other trick to get so much humanity and humility on the page—but Stevan has built a world full of beautiful and messy people living beautiful and messy lives. These stories are great on their own, and even stronger together. You’ll feel like you know these people and this place better than you know your own people and place. You should be ashamed of yourself for not having read this book yet!” — Yuvi Zalkow, author of A Brilliant Novel in the Works

“…the most skillfully-woven collection of linked short stories I’ve read to date.” — Stefanie Freele, contributor at Late Night Library

“… these are the kinds of stories I love, stories about characters we find easy to judge, then learn why they are who they are. It doesn’t excuse bad behavior, but as readers we can learn to feel compassion for them and maybe, by extension, for people in the real world.” — Edee Lemonier, reviewer at Reading and Writing Cafe

“What a joy it is when an author’s imagination is on par with his writing chops. The richly nuanced town of Renata, Oregon, becomes palpably real in A Simplified Map of the Real World, Stevan Allred’s charming tapestry of life, death, love, heartache and every other human experience captured and fully realized in a series of interconnected short stories.” — Madeleine Maccar, writer at CCLaP