A dirty little secret in publishing is that short-story writers are often asked if they have a novel that might be used to launch their literary careers. LaToya Watkins’ collection of short stories, “Holler, Child,” was rumored to be ready long before her highly acclaimed novel, “Perish,” was completed. If this rumor were to be believed, it would demonstrate publishing’s continuing bias against short-story collections, even when they are as powerful as this one.

“Holler, Child,” with equal fidelity, visits the extraordinary and the ordinary, the neglected and the grave. The collection opens with a story about a missing body at the morgue and a mother who once led her now disappeared son — a charismatic cult leader — to believe he was, in fact, the Messiah. “I wanted him to be still and special and good, so I told him the same story I heard as a girl … cept I made him the star.”

“The Mother” is riveting, and Watkins weaves the story so capably that you hardly understand what this former prostitute, this purported Messiah’s mother, has wrought until she agrees to tell the entire world about her only begotten son.

Motherhood is a central theme of the collection and through it, the idea that we cannot undo what we have done. Perhaps mothers know this best, but the men in this collection, who are short on money and long on unforgettable personas, know it too. From horse breeders to dog lovers, these Black men are destined to break your heart, for they are introspective and vulnerable, while operating in a harsh West Texas landscape that doesn’t ever quite feel like their own, a place where their babies die and their women grow hard. In “Dog Person,” a man who has lost his wife and child reflects on his failure to nurture his family.

“And there was a callus growing between us because I still wouldn’t hold the baby. She whined about me not stepping up. Not helping her in the ways she thought I should. After a while, she stopped whining and just seemed sad. She seemed so sad.” The narrator has his reasons for this withdrawal, and though such reasons may surprise a few readers, the real surprise is how accurately Watkins renders a particular type of new father, one who is distrustful of the new life that has interrupted his own, then soon regretful.

德州本地,拉托亚沃特金斯当t写道hough she understands the dangers of overdramatization and hyperbole for these Black Texans. Her stories feel rawer and more alive than the overcooked short-story collections of late. Watkins knows these people, and she doesn’t rely on embellishments. They are simple folks navigating life’s knottiness, and Watkins commands these tellings with tenderness, so that even those who are too often made to feel invisible — a stroke victim or the one-eyed mother of a rapist — “come in like (they) was invited or something.”

In “Tipping,” a long-neglectful mother arrives to comfort her newly widowed daughter. Old grievances fill the room, while Watkins makes clear the particular cruelty of having to be in the presence of someone you resent, a someone who can see all your vulnerabilities.

“She was right all along,” Lettie tells the reader about her mother. “Chuck was a tipper — a cheater and a liar — and even with all of that I couldn’t walk away. … I stayed with him and made like I was hard when I wasn’t. … I don’t want her to be right about Chuck. About me. If she right about us, then she might be right about doing the best she could when we was kids. And that thought make me want to break apart and spill all over the floor.”

In Watkins’ very capable hands, grief often shines a light on the labyrinthian quality of love.

“Holler, Child” is not a perfect story collection. In fact, I’ve yet to meet a perfect one, as stories are meant to meet you where you are, and there is no way one can be fully prepared to grasp all the fraught complexities, all the richness of character, all the rotting big dreams of the folks contained in these pages, but there was immense pleasure in trying.

Lauren Francis-Sharma is a freelance writer.