The El Paso Red Flame Gas Station and Other Stories

The El Paso Red Flame Gas Station and Other Stories by J Reeder Archuleta is a collection of eight stories rural West Texas. Archuleta was raised in far West Texas and a child of five previous generations of West Texans.  He is also the author of the novel Rio Sonora.

These stories span twenty or so years from the mid-1940s through the Vietnam War and take place in West Texas, the Panhandle, and Odessa. West Texas is a bit like Mayberry in that the townspeople look out for one another. It is also a bit like the wild west with drinking, fights, and a bit of lawlessness that gets overlooked. It reflects modern Texas with its pride in military service and high school football.  In fact, football has a position almost on par with the military. Football stars are heroes.

What ties this collection of short stories together is that they center around a boy named Josh. Josh is introduced as a young boy, the son of a poor couple traveling West Texas looking for work. Josh moves around and establishes himself in town. He is liked and trusted. It is not an easy life for Josh without any family to support him. Members of the town help in different ways and provide a safety net for the boy as he grows up. Life is not easy and but it is West Texas and nothing comes easily to anyone.

A well-done selection of stories that reflect changes in a boys life and changes in rural Texas.  The characters in the stories are believable and likable (or unlikeable depending on the situation).  The stories are plain-spoken but run deep.  This is an enjoyable piece of Americana that has long passed into history.  It will be a pleasant bit of nostalgia for some, and for others, it is a look back into what life was like in rural America.

The thing about southern New Mexico, southeastern Arizona and extreme western Texas is that the more things change, the more they remain the same. This wild country, with it's side-of-the-road mountain towns and wide spreading ranches and isolated farmers interspersed with the odd service station and boarded up farmer's markets and independently owned general stores is in a time warp. To some these stories appear nostalgic but to those of us born and raised here this is not just the way it was. There are places where it still is this way. J. Reeder Archuleta understands that, and honors that way of life with his stories.

I loved Josh. He is the character who ties all these stories together, a boy raised by a community who are able to insure that he has what he really needs and his pride as well as he grows from an abandoned child into a responsible, caring man. And the war stories that span WWII and Korea to Josh's Vietnam are the oral histories of a community who takes seriously the cost of freedom, the necessity for giving your all to preserve what we have for the next generations to come. Even an abandoned child (who also understands that he is a fifth generation desert native) without current family ties knows that we are all family, that we rise and fall together and it is the responsibility of everyone to hold the status quo. That has not changed even in this modern world of Walmart and Amazon and extremely fast food. That is why you will find so many residents of the high plains desert who wouldn't dream of moving to a 'real' city with many options for entertainment and excitement and theatres and restaurants and jobs. El Paso is just down the road, and it is big enough for all of us. To visit.

I have added Archuleta to my short list of authors who understand and honor our way of life. Ivan Doig. Zane Grey. Cormac McCarthy. Wallace Stegner. But also Kent Nerburn, Michael McGarrity, Tony Hillerman, Navada Barr, William Street, Wily Cash. And our more northern families - C J Box, Craig Johnson, Robert Olmstead. These are authors who love this lifestyle and wish to share it. But please, don't plan to move here. You would hate the dust.

I received a free electronic copy of this collection of short stories from Netgalley, J. Reeder Archuleta, and Dog Ear Publishing in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all, for sharing your hard work with me.

I love short stories. I love how much talent and skill it takes to tell a whole story in a relatively few words. I love the way they force writers to distill their ideas to the most important, the most vivid, the most visceral.

This collection of short stories by J. Reeder Archuleta, The El Paso Red Flame Gas Station and Other Stories, is one of the best representatives of this art that I’ve seen from a contemporary author. Archuleta is specific with regard to detail – brands of whisky, kinds of beer, types of toys. His use of language is earthy and real, as gritty as the air during a windstorm on the plains. His dialogue makes you really see his characters.

I liked the way the young boy Josh, whom we meet in the first selection in this book, becomes the POV character, the thread that ties all the stories together. From the first time we see him, scared and young, being pulled away from the life he knows by is desperate mother, through the entire collection, we seem grow and change, and yet, because this isn’t a novel, it’s possible that he isn’t exactly the same Josh, that rather, he’s reflections of the original, each incarnation slightly different from the previous and the next.

I’ve lived in Texas for nearly fourteen years, the longest I’ve lived anywhere, but I don’t really know Texas. There’s so much of it I haven’t seen, certainly, except for when we drove through to Dallas from California, I’ve never experienced West Texas, and yet, from time spent in Colorado as a child, and South Dakota as a young wife, I feel a kind of kinship with the landscape Archuleta describes.

I went into this book afraid I might be turned off, and was surprised to find that I really connected with the easy storytelling and honest portrayals of real-seeming people.

Archuleta is a modern Hemingway. A Texas treasure. And these stories? They should be shared as far and wide as possible.

Goes well with: barbecued brisket and cold beer.

I have never been to West Texas (or even the USA) but after reading the eight short stories by J Reeder Archuleta such was the descriptive power of the writing that I could clearly imagine in my mind what life would have been like living there. There are eight short stories in the book all featuring Josh who we first meet as a young boy living a transitory existence travelling around with his parents looking for casual work sleeping in a tent or the car. This is a coming of age story and spans about twenty years from the mid 1940's to the Vietnam war. This was a hard place to live with an unforgiving climate and it still had elements of the wild west. In the second story set in the Cotton Club Saloon Josh witnesses a stabbing which signifies that there is a level of lawlessness that is likely to surface at any moment.

Abandoned by his mother Joss grows up relying on the goodwill of the townspeople. There appears to be no social services getting involved here. This makes Joss self resilient and he is always able to get by somehow. American Football is of a major importance to the town and there is one story that centres on an important game that he participates in. War and the effects that it had on those from the town that took part in it is also a reoccurring theme throughout the stories whether World World II, Korea or Vietnam. That Josh felt the need to enlist is not a surprise considering the lack of a real alternative and the feeling of self fulfillment that he was seeking.

One of the most poignant parts was when returning from Vietnam the changes that Joss now witnessed had taken place. The author comes from West Texas and this is a heartfelt tribute to the wonderful characters that lived there and a testament to the human spirit. I would certainly recommend this if you require a discerning read.

J. Reeder Archuleta uses the rural West Texas nothingness as the backdrop in "The El Paso Red Flame Gas Station." a group of short stories focusing on a boy trying to find his place in the world. The

We're introduced to Josh, a boy growing up in the 1950s and '60s with the help of broken-down cowboys, bar owners, bar regulars - and no mother. Through the author's eyes, we see the despair, hope and maturation of a young man who learns, often by the hard way, that if he wants a better life, he has to do it for himself.

Kudos to the author for his choice of settings. The small town and rough landscape are the perfect backgroup of this coming-of-age collection.

These may be short stories, but they are chock full of life in a small Texas town and actually, all the stories center around one character, Josh. He is various ages in the stories and while he may not always be the main focus, he is in each story.

I think Josh's presence is pivotal to the stories, even if he is not the main focus. We follow his life as he goes through his teens and what it was like to be homeless and without a family other than the townsfolk that watched over him. I think that everyone could relate to Josh's experiences in one way or another, from personal experience or of someone they know.

I'm not sure if I could choose a favorite out of all the short stories. Each brings a different viewpoint of what was happening in the world at that time, or when a character is reminiscing. We get a peek into what it might have been like to fight in a war, the mental instability from PTSD, the kindness of the townsfolk for each other, and young love.

Each story is well written and sometimes left me wanting more because I thought that the story shouldn't have ended and I wanted to know what happened next. I hope that there might be another book because Josh's story is not finished.

I've never been to west Texas, but it sounds surprisingly like areas of Ohio and southwest Oklahoma, both places I'm familiar with. Life really doesn't change much in these isolated areas far removed from the greater world. I like the way these stories tied in to each other to create a total picture of the area and their people. Such close knit-ness in the communities lacking in more urban areas. I loved the characters they are well developed. The writing was superb and drew me in very quickly. I am going to look for other books by the author as I think they bare reading!