Heron author tells new tales

Sandy Compton's new book from Blue Creek Press - The Dog With His Head On Sideways - begins with a tale from the banks of the Ob River in Siberia, and ends with "The Longest Day of the Year," on the Rocky Mountain Front in Teton County, Montana. Between the two are 18 other "sappy sentimental stories" gathered over several decades from around the world.

With two exceptions ("I'll let readers figure out which ones," Compton said), all are connected somehow to the mythical small town of Shoreline, Idaho. Shoreline is the setting of many tales from Compton's StoryTelling Company shows, which had a run of about 17 years. Some contained in The Dog With His Head On Sideways may be familiar to those who were in those audiences. The oldest story, "Redemption at the Hand of Alice Lundberg" is a ghostly hunting tale written in 1983. Others are newly written, including "Two By Four," a comical account of a woman and her pretty new horse, which has way too much rodeo experience.

The book is broken into four sections of five stories each: Dog Stories, Love Stories, Purely Shoreline and Potpourri. "Some of the stories fit into more than one category," Compton said, "but I tried to put them where they belong best. Many are fraught with dreams and encounters with the Spirit, but Shoreline has always been a dreamy, Spirit-laden place. Its residents seem to think they have all the time in the world. I sometimes wonder if I didn't accidentally stumble onto some iteration of heaven."

Not all the stories are heavenly. "A Cold Day in Hell" entails a woman's Christmas Day fight with barbed wire, a white tail buck and her own abiding anger. "Dyin' Ain't as Easy as All That," "The Trouble With Loving Angel," and "Duck" are all reminders of things that can go wrong in a life. But most have something to say about the efficacy of love, forgiveness and forbearance.

"Rosalie Sorrels once said that the trouble with stories is that we never know when they are going to end," Compton said. "Sometimes, the end is not quite what the storyteller had in mind, but when a good story has come to a proper place to stop, it will, like a good pack mule, refuse to go farther. If you listen to your characters, they will show you a good place to pull up."

Compton knows his characters and the landscapes he places them in. His small details and larger portraits of people and place allow readers to bring their own imaginations into play, which, Compton notes, is an important aspect of storytelling. "When we were doing the StoryTelling Company, I was never upset to see someone in the audience with their eyes closed. Unless their chin was on their chest, I knew they were watching the story unfold internally.

"I searched through almost 40 years of files to put this together," Compton says. "It's my seventh book of fiction - I think - and I'm pleased with how it came out. I like my characters, and I believe in their stories - even though some of them are out on the edge of believability. But so is all of life."

The Dog With His Head On Sideways and Nineteen Other Sappy Sentimental Stories is available at select bookstores, and online at bluecreekpress.com/books or Amazon.