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A Catalogue of Everything in the World, winner of the 2008 St. Lawrence Book Award, is an allegory of identity: characters’ entwined experiences share an undercurrent of uncertainty, of self-exploration; a sentiment that Renfro adeptly mirrors with the geographical particularities of Nebraska, a place at once undefined and yet subtly representative of the world’s infinite catalogued people and circumstances. It’s this dichotomy of life and understanding—an elderly widow grappling with time; a young woman trying to tame a confusing, inchoate love; a displaced Californian searching for belonging—that Renfro weaves so beautifully throughout these stories, each more incisive and imaginative than the last.
Praise
“A Catalogue of Everything in the World is truly that—a vividly illustrating, achingly honest, and stunningly lyrical examination of everything in these characters’ hearts, wherever they may have landed. Renfro’s people are hurt, and tenderhearted, and still they try to figure out their worlds. I couldn’t look away, and I carried them with me for some time.”
—Susan Straight, author of Highwire Moon
“These lovely, evocative Nebraska Stories in A Catalogue of Everything in the World by Yelizaveta P. Renfro are not only authentic to the lyricism and vastness of the region but so true and dignifying of human relationships and struggles in this very fine and wise collection.”
—Susan Richards Shreve, author of A Student of Living Things
“Renfro’s firm grasp of language and inventive use of space contributes enormously to the success of the fiction.”
—Alan Cheuse, author of To Catch the Lightning | |
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Yelizaveta P. Renfro’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Glimmer Train Stories, North American Review, Colorado Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, South Dakota Review, Witness, Blue Mesa Review, Fourth River, Bayou Magazine, Untamed Ink, So to Speak, and the anthologies A Stranger Among Us: Stories of Cross Cultural Collision and Connection (OV Books, 2008) and Commutability: Stories about the Journey from Here to There (Main Street Rag, 2010). She holds an MFA from George Mason University and a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska. Born in the former Soviet Union, she has lived in California, Virginia, Nebraska, and Connecticut. | |
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from: Brian W. Johnson
to: Dudley Sharp
date: Thu, Jun 19 at 9:59 PM
subject: Boxing the Compass
By virtue of being a direction and not a place, West is always in opposition to your present location. West always eludes you. You cannot get there. The West I am after is not on any map. West is a place in the mind. West is where life can be good, God can be glimpsed. Of course the West is gone, ruined. Of course there can be no West for someone born and raised in and consequently disgusted by that ultimate epitome of the West, the coast, California, the City of the Angels. And so I have come east to find the West. Northeast, to be precise. Actually, northeast by east to be more precise. Actually, NE by E ¾ E, based on the 128-point compass rose. (Yes, I bother to look such things up on the Internet.) I’ve asked people here if I’m in the West, but nobody seems to know for sure. You’re pretty close. You’re in the ballpark. Cross the Wyoming border, and you’ll be there. Cross the Colorado border, and you’ll be there. I’ve crossed and re-crossed both, and the land doesn’t change. I say all of America is the West and the West is all of America. I say this is the West as much as anyplace. I say the West is a place to believe in and if you believe in it you’re there. I would say that the West that I’m talking about is God, only it isn’t, not quite. Because I can believe in the West but I can’t quite believe in God. Why is that, Dud? Why is it that in America we’re more likely to believe in the cardinal directions than in divinity? Is it because our land is our religion? Is it because of manifest destiny, the interstates unrolling from under our tires always leading somewhere better greener safer, the mountains and the plains and the deserts and the forests and the canyons and all our riches that make us strong and independent and not beholden to anyone? But I shouldn’t speak for you. I shouldn’t use the plural “we.” It is of myself I speak, always the singular I, always the lone individual seeking seeking seeking something. What? | | |
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