Monuments to the Dead

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

When Mount Rushmore suddenly disappears—no more presidents gracing its face—The American Observer sends Emelia Sunlake to give the California perspective.

Emelia wants to put "a white, middle-class, female California perspective" on the experience. But she soon discovers that everyone—white, black, Native and non-Native—sees this strange phenomenon differently. 

Chosen as one of the best stories of 1994, "Monuments to the Dead" shows Kristine Kathryn Rusch at her best.

"Kristine Kathryn Rusch integrates the fantastic elements so rigorously into her story that it is often hard to remember she is not merely recording the here and now."

—Science Fiction Weekly

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Sep 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536574395

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.  She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

Book preview

Monuments to the Dead

Monuments to the Dead

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

WMG Publishing, Inc.

Contents

The California Perspective: Reflections On Mt. Rushmore

by L. Emilia Sunlake

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About the Author

Also by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

The California Perspective: Reflections On Mt. Rushmore

by L. Emilia Sunlake

The union of these four presidents carved on the face of the everlasting hills of South Dakota will contribute a distinctly national monument. It will be decidedly American in its conception, in its magnitude, in its meaning, and altogether worthy of our country.

Calvin Coolidge at the dedication of Mt. Rushmore in 1927

Cars crawl along Highway 16. The hot summer sun reflects off shiny bumper stickers, most plastered with the mementos of tourist travel: Sitting Bull Crystal Cave, Wall Drug, and I (heart) anything from terriers to West Virginia. The windows are open, and children lean out, trying to see magic shimmering in the heat visions on the pavement. The locals say the traffic has never been like this, that even in the height of tourist season, the cars can at least go thirty miles an hour. Kenny, the photographer, and I have been sitting in this sticky heat for most of the afternoon, moving forward a foot at a time, sharing a Diet Coke, and hoping the story will be worth the aggravation.

I have never been to the Black Hills before. Until I started writing regularly for the slick magazines, I had never been out of California, and even then my outside assignments were rare. Usually I wrote about things close to home: the history of Simi Valley, for instance, or the relationships between the Watts riot and the Rodney King riot twenty-five years later. When American Observer sent me to South Dakota, they asked me to write from a California perspective. What they will get is a white, middle-class, female California perspective. Despite my articles on the cultural diversity of my home state, American Observer—published in New York—continues to think that all Californians share the same opinions, beliefs, and outlooks.

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