“SOME CRITICS SAY you should never start or even use a dream in a story,” writes Cynthia J. Sylvester (Diné) in The Half-White Album (UNM Press), “but I’m awake now and pretending that it wasn’t a dream at all.” That kind of adventurous logic rules Sylvester’s debut, a collection of flash fictions woven so intricately you can barely discern the fine threads connecting 10 concerts, mother-daughter complexities, and several narrators in the Dinétah and beyond. Some read like new legends: Lightning, an Elvis lookalike, meets Thunder in a cherry ’57 Chevy somewhere outside Tucumcari. Once they crank up the tunes? Monsoons.
What We're Reading: The Half White Album
Author Cynthia J. Sylvester's collection of short stories takes readers on a journey led by a band from the Dinétah.
By Molly Boyle