Fairbanks writer Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock’s collection of short stories for young adults, Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town, portrays the struggles her teen characters face and how their interactions with others — family, friends, strangers — help them develop new awareness and resilience. Published last spring by Wendy Lamb Books/Random House, the stories are set during the 1990s in small towns in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, and Alaska.
Hitchcock’s writing captures not only the physical details of these rural landscapes but the emotional tenor of daily life for teens. Typically, her characters and their lives are messy, a bit muddled, sometimes hilarious, and sometimes anguished. Both the girls and guys in these stories have a lot of heart, and ultimately, strength.
Issues range from grief over the loss of a parent, disappearance of a sibling, healing from sexual abuse, being gay in a conservative rural community, dealing with pressures to conform, sibling relationships, addiction, and more. Hitchcock handles these tough topics in gentle ways, by which I mean that descriptions are not graphic but focus on the emotional impact of trauma. Though difficult problems are addressed, Hitchcock’s characters portray the power of individuals and community to help themselves and each other heal.
One of my favorite stories — there are several — is "Basketball Town." Anyone who has lived in a small, rural community knows how important competitive sports can be. Hitchcock upends the usual focus on males in sport stories by writing about two girls, cousins who cope in their own ways with the intense expectations of others.
A pleasure of this collection is the interconnectedness that runs throughout the stories. Numerous characters appear more than once. Several locations are repeated. Likewise, a few plot elements reoccur — wildfire, an abusing priest, a renegade radio personality.
Readers expecting to have all these pieces tied up into a single narrative, as in Hitchcock’s earlier novel for young adults, The Smell of Other People’s Houses, may be disappointed. However, if taken for what it is, a gathering of stories about rural teens dealing with life, those seemingly random or loose relationships underscore one of Hitchcock’s major themes: that we humans are connected more than we realize — and how we treat each other makes a difference. That's a theme that feels more vital than ever right now.
