Did I mention the collection includes a sixty-page novella set in 1849? She’s just as comfortable describing the woes of a couple dealing with their first child as she is a Vegas trip gone bad. In the opening story, “Ghosts, Cowboys,” she uses the famous Comstock Lode as a sort of Pandora’s Box whose riches give rise to the state of Nevada and unleash its particular brand of evil and folly upon America, hybridizing this already rich historical material with the sins of her wayward father. Here Watkins is at once myth-maker and miniaturist. Battleborn’s ten stories are howls from the Mojave Desert where she was raised and are peopled with Nevada’s prospectors and prostitutes, gamblers and ghosts. She’s also transformed it into startling, original fiction. her father trolled female recruits for Charles Manson, though he didn’t participate in the Helter Skelter murders and died when Watkins was a child. Her mother committed suicide just before Watkins completed her B.A.

Given her life story, however, my guess is that Watkins would shrug off any envy such accolades might inspire. The Mad Libs comparisons: “ Lonesome Dove as written by Truman Capote.” As if all this weren’t enough, Watkins was just named one of the 5 Under 35 honorees by the National Book Foundation along with Justin Torres, Stuart Nadler, Haley Tanner, and Jennifer DuBois. Terrific blurbs from Pulitzer-winner Paul Harding and short-story doyenne Joy Williams. Glowing reviews in The New York Times and Publishers Weekly.

Major publishing houses vying for her manuscript. Claire Vaye Watkins, author of the debut story collection Battleborn, has already enjoyed a rising star’s red-carpet rollout: a sterling track record in publications like Granta, One Story, Glimmer Train, and The Paris Review.

Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins