Skinner allows his characters to speak in a language that is evocative, unsentimental, and empirical.
--Pasatiempo
The Tombstone Race
Stories
Description
A teenager accused of homicide finds little support from his family or community. A woman in a conservative town must find ways to protect her gay brother from their militaristic mother. A graduate student discovers that his research has been stolen, probably by the same street gang he has been studying. A former police officer, fired for shooting a deranged man, patrols his own neighborhood. Set in places as diverse as Fort Sumner, Taos, Chimayó, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Clovis, the fourteen stories in The Tombstone Race explore the surprising connections and disjunctions between rich and poor, urban and rural, old and new, ugly and beautiful. Based in part on the author’s experiences as a Spanish/English interpreter in the criminal courts of New Mexico, Skinner’s stories navigate the state’s changing cultures with humor and heart.
Reviews
New Mexico is fertile literary soil for José Skinner's second story collection, The Tombstone Race. The fourteen stories explore society through the lens of ethnicity, class, friendship, family conflict, and generational friction. Believable, quirky characters, young and old, inhabit the stories.
--Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico is fertile literary soil for José Skinner's second story collection, The Tombstone Race. The fourteen stories explore society through the lens of ethnicity, class, friendship, family conflict, and generational friction. Believable, quirky characters, young and old, inhabit the stories.
--Albuquerque Journal
Skinner's stories are smart and colloquial, conflicted and comical. . . . He doesn't pull punches with roles and he allows the individuals he follows to roam outside the box of assumed roles.
--Austin American-Statesman
