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(More customer reviews)Brian Ames' collection of short stories entitled SMOKE FOLLOWS BEAUTY is a work to be savored. While most of the stories are fairly short, they are also deep, so that the reader feels compelled to read each story twice, once for the pure enjoyment of reading a well-written story, and a second time to look for the meaning that lies therein, thus the stories make the reader think as well as enjoy. Most of the stories are set in the Northwestern United States, in natural settings, mostly woodlands. Mr. Ames is obviously an outdoorsman, one who has a deep love of nature, and his love of nature is reflected in the beauty of his words. For example, he describes the approach of a rain wall thusly: "It assembled itself like the weaving of a moist blanket over the rise of the river, dropping from low altocumulus onto round mounds of hills." His description of a woodland sunrise is just as striking: "Dawn is breaking, sunrise evolving bands of orange and pink, the pink flying from light and overcome by gold, then gray, as overcast settles the east." What Mr. Ames does is describe the beauties of nature not just so the reader can envision them but so that the reader feels as though he or she is actually there, seeing and feeling and enjoying what the narrator of the story is experiencing. There's a lot of Hemingway in the stories, not only in the way a love of nature comes through, but in the details that only one who has experienced and enjoyed life in the wilds could express them. Like Hemingway himself, Mr. Ames truly has a way with words.
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