I am not familiar with the work of Deborah Coates. Fortunately the editors have provided us with a little bit of information on the author. It states among other things Ms. Coates lives in Iowa with two dogs and no cats. I’d say this story could not have been off to a worse start, everybody knows cats are superior creatures. I will try not to let it influence my opinion on the story though 
This is what winter’s like in South Dakota on the plains—you wake up and it’s full dark still, maybe five o’clock in the morning and you know without ever throwing the covers off, without ever getting up, that it’s at least twenty below zero outside.
Chainsaw on Hand opens with a perfectly sensible reason why not many people choose to live in South Dakota. The main character however, does choose to live there. We follow her on one of those harsh winter days, that from the start look like they are going to be miserable. She’s going out to see her ex-husband. A man who is considered insane by most of the the small community she lives in. The man beliefs he sees angels, or perhaps they are fairies, and has announced this fact to the rest of the world. The sign outside his door that says “Chainsaw on Hand” is the latest sign of his state of mind.
I guess you could say she has never quite put the divorce and her ex-husbands insanity behind her, somehow feeling responsible for him, or perhaps denying that, despite what her rational minds tells her, she wants to believe him. This story is not really my thing but I have to admit the way the tangle of her feelings about the whole situation unknots at the end of the story is very well done.
As you can see from the quote about the story is written in the second person. An unusual perspective, I don’t remember reading many pieces of fiction in the second person. It works very well in this story, although I doubt this style would work for a longer piece. Good characterization and the use of an unusual perspective make this story stand out in the four stories in Best American Fantasy 2008 I have reviewed so far. Good writing outweighs the absence of cats I suppose.
This is part of the BookSpot Central Short Fiction Round Table spotlight on stories that will be included in Best American Fantasy 2008 edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer and forthcoming from Prime Books. Please see the intro to the spotlight.
