I can across this collection of short fiction, The Tall Uncut by Peter Fromm in doing some research for my longer novel a couple of weeks back. For anyone interested in short fiction with the American West in mind and most notably written in the "western" mindset, this could be a pretty notable book for you. Fromm captures that silence of character one often sees when living in places under the big sky. He does it well often (not always perfect, but well) and manages to play out the interiority of characters through their rich landscape.
There are stories of fishing, poaching, rabbit farming, and duck hunting in this collection that allow to see the world and the very basis of the human experience through their frameworks. Sometimes Fromm leaves the reader hanging with lack of closure. But this might also be attributed to the fact that both sport and life rarely conclude in neat little packages. Sometimes the isolation of the individual is so haunting that it remains with you for days afterward.
The collection is relatively short (the copy I read was in the upper one hundreds for page length), and the language both approachible and often times memorable. It's a great way to spend some time reading away and pining after moments under the big sky.
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