Down East Press has put together a very attractive boxed set of short works with four separate paperback books that also include artwork from Richard's talented daughter, Kate, on their covers and inside each volume, on a removable postcard. There is a novella (Intervention), two short stories (one, The Whore's Child, was already included as the title story in another collection of his) and a short memoir. The brief and powerful memoir is taken from the full Russo memoir to be released this fall. Intervention was my favorite of the fiction pieces. Taken altogether, I was just captivated by this beautiful, little set.
The memoir was my favorite volume. It was titled High and Dry, was fascinating. It told of Russo's small hometown of Gloversville, New York and its rich and colorful past of glove making. His grandfather was a very highly skilled glover from the old world, but when the factory was mechanized for speed and increased production his skills weren't needed or appreciated as much.
"Machines and the relentless drumbeat of piecework, together with a shorter work season, guaranteed that he'd die a poor man."
Low-skilled machine operators pumped out the volume that made the neighboring streams turn a whole rainbow of bright colors on a regular basis. Having grown up among the many abandoned mills of New England myself, this personal look back really resonated with me. Taking a product that required such skill, by proud members of a glove makers guild, and reducing it to huge stamping machines, cutting out a constant stream of product, and a few fingers here and there, is a sad tale for a Luddite like me. Tanning hides with the bark of local hemlock trees just seems somehow more true, than the use of chrome, and all its poisons and environmental destruction.
"Chrome tanning was never anything but lethal, its byproducts including lime, chlorine, formaldehyde, sulfuric acid, chromium III, glycol ether EB, Toluene, xylol, magnesium sulfate, lead, copper, and zinc to name just a few."
The personal story of his relatives and how they coped with all the changes of time, was intensely sad, but obviously very close to Russo's heart. Like many areas of former industrialization, Gloversville is a much different town than when it was riding high with the money that came to it as the hub of American glove production. Russo's clear, straightforward, and personal style made me feel like I had lived in Gloversville—and watched it decline from its those grand buildings and well-earned reputation. ( )

Richard Russo is one of my favorite authors, and Interventions does not disappoint. It comes as four separately bound volumes in a slipcase, and each volume includes postcard-sized original artwork by Russo's daughter, Kate. The art and the books complement one another beautifully. Three of the volumes are short stories, while the fourth is a short memoir. The first volume, Intervention, is about a realtor who is dealing with a health scare that causes him to take stock, ponder the value of fighting for his life, and consider past relationships that have molded him. I love Russo's prose and insights. Here's a favorite from the book: "Perhaps his father had lacked imagination, as Uncle Jack had maintained. And maybe, as his brother Bill had too readily conceded, all their father's days had been rainy. But anyone who imagined the man liked standing in lines was mistaken. Nobody enjoyed that. Nor could he have enjoyed some minion telling him what he was entitled to when he finally made it to the front of that line. By the same token, though, could a man judge his own merits, reward his own efforts, and call it justice?". The second volume is The Whore's Child, which was previously published in a collection of short stories. It's the story of a nun who crashes a creative writing class to help her tell her own story. It contains a wonderful story within the story, and I enjoyed reading it for a second time. The third volume is called Horseman, and was my least favorite of the collection. It tells the story of a college professor's life, and the tension between her personal and professional endeavors. The final volume is Russo's short memoir of growing up in a mill town in upstate New York. For fans of Russo it contains many tidbits about his life that were later incorporated in his novels, and for that, I loved it. It also posed an interesting question of how we should feel about a hard, dangerous, and toxic industry, that, despite all its flaws, and for better or worse, did keep alive a town (many of them, I'm sure), and provide a living for its inhabitants. All in all, an excellent collection of writings, and I'm very glad I read it. ( )