The lush and layered stories in this delightful debut stretch from the deep darkness of Carlsbad Caverns to the light of desert stars. In Nancy J. Allen’s fierce first collection, A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes , the extraordinary emerges from the everyday. Allen’s stories are informed by the vast landscapes of New Mexico and Texas, and in them the mythic and the mundane intertwine: two neighbors burn a grandson’s letters from Vietnam in a backyard grill; a child vanishes into the maze of Albuquerque’s fabled Alvarado Hotel; a sculptor meets her younger self in the eerie stillness of a theater lobby. These are only a few of the unforgettable, mysterious moments that mark the arrival of a bold new voice in contemporary Southwest fiction.