Ardin Lalui

Short stories make a tough calling card when entering the field of literature, but in the case of author Ardin Lalui this story, THERE IS NO OTHERWISE, proves to be a seductive entry into a field that has heavy competition - stories about the Americana of the dry, desolate, has-been plains of Texas and New Mexico. One the Kindle version the author gives a beautifully designed, artistic and atmospheric website where he establishes his credentials: `Ardin Lalui was born in Ireland in 1981. He later lived in Eastern Europe, Africa, South America and Canada. He received a law degree from the University of Aberdeen but gave up the law to live a life of adventure. He has been writing since 2007 and published his first story on Amazon Kindle in 2012. His biggest influences are Cormac McCarthy and the lyrics of Tom Waits.'

So this young lad from Irish descent has a vision of life in the dust of Texas farmlands - and that vision happens to be so well defined that in one short story he stands like a man with a very promising future. The quality of prose paints places and people so well that he can be compared very comfortably to writers such as his inspired guide Cormac McCarthy, and Colm Tóibín and Carson McCullers. In his author's statement he leaves a message for us all: ' Writing is still the most profound and direct method of storytelling we have. People say the novel is dying but I say the novel will die last of all. Writing is unique in its ability to connect two people and transmit a story from one mind to another. There is nothing else like that. Who would want to live in a world without books?'

His story involves three young lads who work on the Tobin Ranch east of El Paso (of note, the Tobins immigrated from Ireland!) and the lads - Ashton Modine, Arliss Ermey (on Tobin ranch since kids in child protection service) are 5 years older than the somewhat naïve John Paul McGrath. The boys are off to Las Cruces to drink, get some women, and escape from the current tenor of the Tobins (Mrs.Tobin is dying of cancer and Mr. Tobin has turned to drink). The boys end up in a filthy bar - La Luna - in Las Cruces, get drunk, make and attempt to get women, and are faced with a threat that has its consequences for their needed diversion. They return to the Tobin Ranch, changed.

Though the story is very strong and carries a tremendous impact in its brevity, it is the prose that flows so comfortably from Lalui's pen that makes it magical, like the opening paragraph alone: `A pickup rode north on route eighty out of El Paso. Heat rose from the ground before it like a fog, twisting the air so that the road and the entire Mesilla Valley looked like a melted photograph. To the east the Organ mountains stretched upward like fingers from a grave and to the west was the Rio Grande flowing behind a few good miles of bottomland.' Writing like this doesn't come around often, and when it does, it demands our close attention. Ardin Lalui appears to have a very solid future. Watch him. Grady Harp… (meer)