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Joseph Heywood has spent the vast majority of his prolific writing career spinning tales about the men and women who serve in law enforcement and game warden roles on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Heywood clearly has a love for this area and these people and they evidently also interest a substantial number of readers, so it is with no surprise that he has released HARD GROUND, a collection of short stories that serve as a love letter of sorts to both the area and the game wardens who patrol them. Containing twenty-nine stories within a mere 218 pages, the stories are quite brief and serve more as vignettes that provide a peek into the life of these wardens, rather than being tales that are fully fleshed-out and stand on their own. While HARD GROUND includes a single story each that feature Heywood's two major characters, Grady Service and Lute Bapcat respectively, the majority of the stories center on characters that have not appeared before in Heywood's novels. The introduction of new characters like this is often liberating for authors, but in this collection few are them are allowed room to breathe and become three-dimensional characters. The main problem here is the length; the average story averages fewer than eight pages and several are fewer than five and as a result by the end of the collection, one feels one has gotten to know very few characters, but rather has read a series of vignettes featuring stock characters. This is not to say that many of the stories are not worth one's while and thoroughly enjoyable, of course. In particular, "The Dry Spell," the charming story of a sex-starved game warden who makes a big drug bust at a convention of Elvis impersonators is a true treat and the story of a collusion between that state wildlife department and a corrupt judge in "Sisyphus Redux" is compelling. But too often, readers may find themselves asking if there is any point to too many of these stories which are mildly interesting as "slice of life" vignettes but pack no heft and often no conflict. Some seem to be an avenue for the author to present various societal tangents to readers or serve as vehicles for Heywood to show us how hard-working and full of attitude that these game wardens surely are. While devoted fans of Heywood and those with a particular love for Michigan's Upper Peninsula may find HARD GROUND worthwhile, the number of stories that serve as mere "filler" makes this collection an easy pass for most readers. § Ben Neal is a public librarian in northeastern Tennessee and likes to fancy himself an amateur writer, humorist, detective, and coffee connoisseur in his spare time. He can be reached at beneneal@indiana.edu.
Reviewed by Ben Neal, May 2013
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