This searing debut reimagines the American West through linked stories describing a violent rural separatist movement. In an isolated region of Idaho, Montana, and eastern Oregon known as the Redoubt, an armed occupation of a wildlife refuge is escalating into civil war. Against this backdrop, twelve stories of ordinary lives explore the loneliness, fragility, and heartbreak inherent to love. Families feel the far-reaching shockwaves of displacement and division. A mother makes a hard choice for her sons when their father goes to lead a standoff with the federal government. An unemployed carpenter joins a militia after his wife leaves him and the first airstrikes raze the streets of his hometown. A former soldier raises the daughter of a dead comrade in a bunker beneath an abandoned farm. Ranging from the cities to the small towns of the West, and imbued with its own brand of radical empathy, Loskutoff's fiction is both timely and timeless. Come West and See surges with rage, longing, and fear, and offers startling insights into the wounds of the American people. An Amazon Best Book of May 2018: In "The Dancing Bear," the first story of Maxim Loskutoff's debut short story collection, Come West and See , a lonesome frontiersman falls hard for a grizzly that happens upon his Montana cabin. It’s weird: Her fur shimmered and rolled in waves, like the windy prairie where I was born. Her pink tongue swept away stray apple chunks from around her mouth. I wondered if she had lips. As many tales of unrequited love go, especially in the boy-meets-bear genre, his passion cannot span the species gap, inexorably leading to misunderstanding and calamity. It's a funny story (if you have the right ear) and a solid hook, but from there Loskutoff drives the car back onto the highway to the world of human interaction, examining the complexities of a changing American West through a series of vignettes set in the imaginary "Redoubt": A cross-section of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming that's home to a separatist movement grown out of the occupation of a wildlife sanctuary. (If that sounds familiar, it's because a version of that happened.) But throughout the dozen stories, the simmering revolution largely stays (for the most part) in the background. Loskutoff's interest lies with the people of this vision of Sagebrush Rebellion—the disenfranchised, resentful, and angry prepared to defend their "way of life" against the encroachments of changing demographics, environmentalism, and globalism. His characters hum with anxiety, each overstrung by the knowledge that disaster could visit at any moment, that their own actions have led them down a foolish and futile path—even if they would choose it again. That's just what happens when you court a bear. --Jon Foro, Amazon Book Review "Devastating … grows increasingly bizarre and haunting until it’s left an indelible mark." ― Janet Maslin, New York Times "A new kind of American Western. This book climbs into the heads of its characters, pokes at their insecurities with a sharpened stick, then reaches out a hand to invite you in." ― Jolie Myers, editor, All Things Considered , NPR "A blazing new and original talent. ... [Loskutoff's stories] vividly expose escalating resentments with extraordinary eloquence and compassion." ― National Book Review "Fans of Cormac McCarthy and Russell Banks will find plenty to like in Loskutoff's fresh voice and keen instincts for drama. ... [T]he language is crisp and often thrilling in its plainspoken eloquence." ― LA Weekly "A ferocious love letter to the forgotten and the scorned, Come West and See is unlike any book you'll read this year. It blazes with soul." ― Matt Gallagher, author of Youngblood and Kaboom "Maxim Loskutoff highlights life on the other side―the disenfranchised, angry, sullen, rebellious, gun-packing side. See them attempt to create a homeland of their own." ― William Kittredge, author of Hole in the Sky "Like postcards from a truthful place, Come West And See holds a mirror up to America―a brutal, ferocious image that carries a beauty unto itself." ― Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire mysteries, basis for the Netflix original series Longmire "Violence waits for its moment in the quietest of lives, and Loskutoff shows us that we had better face it and do our best to understand it. A tough, human work of fiction." ― Tom Bouman, author of Fateful Mornings and Dry Bones in the Valley "The strongest characters in this book are the ones who are most adrift, most ready to latch onto whatever comes next, and this makes them both tragic and dangerous ... If there is a great novel to be written about the life of the 21st century interior northwest, then Maxim Loskutoff is a prime candidate to author it." ― FictionWritersReview.com "At its fiery center, Loskutoff’s humans are caught in brutal personal crossfires: a fraying couple trying to save their injured pet coyote, a woman plott