Home
fiction
Defensible Spaces

Defensible Spaces

by Alison Turner

Published by: Torrey House Press

Imprint: Torrey House Press

175 Pages, 5.25 x 8.00 in

Paperback
9781948814676
Published: February 2023

$16.95

Other Retailers:

Bookshop
Barnes & Noble
Edelweiss

Description
Authors
Praise

Linked short stories set in the modern West probe the human desire for independence and profound connection amid a world increasingly on fire.

"Turner's assured prose brings emotional depth...This is a worthy addition to the fiction of the American West."

—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

The residents of Clayton, Colorado, must learn to live with what has burned and what threatens to ignite. In Defensible Spaces, a bus driver confronts a rush of memories when an old flame climbs aboard; a trailer park resident attempts to save her home; a reclusive fire mitigation worker fuels public outrage. Throughout ten linked short stories, townspeople work through relationships with alcoholism, history, and each other, negotiating where and when to create their own defensible spaces that might, but will not always, keep them protected.

For fans of literary linked story collections such as Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge or Fidelity by Wendell Berry, Defensible Spaces is a nuanced and generous debut collection with the former mining town of Clayton, Colorado, at its heart.

Alison Turner grew up in the mountains of Colorado, where she learned to endure large amounts of time in inclement weather waiting for buses. She is the co-host and co-creator of the When you are homeless podcast miniseries, and her creative work appears in Blue Mesa Review, Wordrunner eChapbooks, Little Patuxent Review, Meridian, and Bacopa Literary Review, among others. Turner facilitates writing groups and consults with writers who are experiencing homelessness. She lives in Denver, Colorado.

"Turner’s assured prose brings emotional depth . . .This is a worthy addition to the fiction of the American West."
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"I wait for Alison Turner's fiction the way one waits for sunlight after a long period of darkness. Defensible Spaces is a wonder. A beautiful, soul-touching ticking clock of a collection that explores—with grace and precision—all the layers and years of a former mining community in Colorado. This is a book to savor, one that carries our world, and one you'll be reaching for again and again."
—PAUL YOON, author of Run Me To Earth
"Alison Turner's stories are embers. They spark and glow. They smolder for years, sparing some lives while devastating others when they burst back into flame."
—ERICA OLSEN, author of Recapture and Other Stories
"In this masterfully woven collection, Alison Turner exposes the human kindling in a community racing to stay one step ahead of fire. The residents of Clayton, Colorado, are diverse, compelling, broken, and haunted, and Turner brings to their lives an incisive awareness of an environment's ephemerality. Combining a tender evocation of place and a compassion for human frailty, Defensible Spaces points to the future of fiction."
—KATY SIMPSON SMITH, author of The Everlasting
“Turner vividly evokes a community where regrets smolder for a long time and anger spontaneously ignites.”
—ECOLIT BOOKS
“Full of rich themes and important topics to explore, this is a read that will smolder in your heart long after you close the book.”
—OLD FIREHOUSE BOOKS