“Open Range,” by Dana Hallani, is the first in a series of books on tall women. The book’s very title is an allusion to a line from one of Huckleberry Finn’s popular stories: “The woods are calling and the woods are calling especially for the deep red, shiny hair of an American woman who has not yet reached her prime.” This collection features over twenty-five different short stories about American womanhood. It contains many of the same stories I’ve enjoyed from previous volumes, but it also contains stories that are fresh and new, with new characters and locations. Each short story is centered around a central theme–the search for beauty, love, and friendship, and each story offers a glimpse into the experiences of the many different women who have shaped our nation and our world.
In “Open Range,” the title story opens with Piper Posey, a forty-one-year-old woman of privilege, who moves to Colorado to run a photography business. She succeeds in establishing a successful photography studio in the hills overlooking the city of Colorado Springs, but when her husband leaves her for another woman, Piper is devastated. Distraught, she barely spends a day with her friend Minh, who tries to comfort her. Then, after her marriage to a man in another country, she decides to return to her old home in Colorado, where her family is located. While in Colorado, she bumps into Minh again, and their paths are again intertwined until one day, they’re separated by the distance between the two states.
In “Open Range,” Piper finally makes her way back to her family, which is struggling to make ends meet in these difficult times. With the help of her cousin Minh, she finds encouragement in the company of older relatives and old friends. The foursome is then visited by their recently departed cousin, Johnathon, who dies suddenly while attempting to save the couple’s daughter, Shonda, from being sold into slavery. With the threat of her cousin’s death, Piper, Minh, and the others finally overcome the obstacles that come with growing up, and they learn what it means to be in a long-lasting relationship.