New Century Reading

Best American Short Stories 2007

Generally I am a big fan of the Best American Short Stories annual series. I think it’s a well-run anthology, highlighting both the celeb-literati and little-knowns who deserve more attention. Having a guest editor choose the top 20 stories each year gives the series a wider range of opinions and choices than anthologies or series who stay with one particular editor.

 

That said, I was intrigued to see Stephen King listed as the editor for the 2007 edition. I’ve often felt he’s an underrated writer himself, someone who has frequently risen above what’s perceived as the limitations of genre writing. In his introduction to this book, King makes it clear that he took his role seriously, going above and beyond the reading duty normally assigned to the guest editor (120 stories selected by the series editor). He’s worried about the state of the American short story, and that itself seems hopeful; short stories always seem to get short shrift from the reading public, and yet at their best, they are works of art on their own. But King also said he read several “kick-ass” stories that made him excited about the world of short fiction.

 

Kick-ass, of course, ends up a subjective concept. Out of the 20 stories in this year’s book, I found six that I personally consider kick-ass: T.C. Boyle’s “Balto,” Lauren Groff’s “L. DeBard and Aliette: A Love Story,” Aryn Kyle’s “Allegiance,” Alice Munro’s “Dimension,” Richard Russo’s “Horseman,” and Jim Shepard’s “Sans Farine.” Other stories, including Kate Walbert’s “Do Something” and John Barth’s “Toga Party,” were highly readable and stayed with me after I put the book down, but kick-ass? Not quite. Others, like Mary Gordon’s “Eleanor’s Music” and Louis Auchincloss’ “Pa’s Darling” left me wondering what stories were left out of this book so these could have space—undeservedly. The Gordon story is downright maudlin, and Auchincloss’ is the tired story of a woman struggling with the death of her overbearing father. In the right hands, there is still something fresh to be written about that story, but Auchincloss’ story isn’t it.

 

Overall, it’s always worth reading BASS just to see what’s been happening recently in the world of literature. Some of the names (Barth, Munro) are long-respected writers, while others (Walbert, Shepard) are in the earlier stages of their careers, yet seem poised to have a long and successful life in writing.

 

Beyond that—well, Mr. King, you and I don’t see quite eye-to-eye about what makes a kick-ass story.

Best American Short Stories 2006

It’s that time of year again—time for the esteemed entry into the annual series, The Best American Short Stories. The 2006 volume is edited by guest editor Ann Patchett, and her essay opening the book is a tart and well-thought-out overview of the role of the short story:

 

“The first thing the short story needs to think about is casting off the role of The Novel’s Little Sidekick, the practice run, the warm-up act…Who’s to say the short story writer has a novel in him? Is a sprinter accepted to the team on the condition that she will also run a marathon?”

 

A collection that begins with the hardy advice to accept short stories on their own terms, rather than as short-versions or warm-ups to a novel, is a book after my own heart. It’s a book that certainly should include a story by Alice Munro, the acclaimed (and deservedly so) master of the short story, and this book does.

 

However, it’s not Munro’s finest work. That’s not Patchett’s fault; she only had so many Munro stories to choose from during the prescribed period. But the overall choices sometimes feel questionable. The opening store is a haunting beauty, the luminous “Once the Shore” by Paul Yoon. But other stories feel forced in their drama, such as Edith Pearlman’s “Self-Reliance,” or simply go on too long, ruining a good concept, such as Ann Beattie’s “Mr. Nobody at All,” which is a marvelous parody of modern-day memorial services, but would have been even more marvelous at half the length.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I love the short story, read hundreds of them myself every year for sheer pleasure. I think Patchett’s got it right when she complains about writers playing with the form, writers who are not short story writers at heart. But if that’s the case, it would have been nice to see more masters of the form in this collection. More (and better) Munro, for example; or looking at the 100 runner-up titles in the back, I see nothing listed by William Trevor. Did he not publish anything during that year? Because the latest work of his that I’ve read has been wonderful. He didn’t earn a spot in the top 120? Lorrie Moore is a finalist, but Ann Beattie’s story made the book?

 

If I sound disappointed, it’s because I am. I’m a big fan both of this series and of Ann Patchett. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but the stories that are included in this year’s volume don’t strike me as the cream of the crop, for the most part.

 

The good thing about this series is that there will be a new guest editor next year. Someone else will pick the final 20. And I’ll be ready and waiting when it comes out in print.

Best American Short Stories 2005

If it’s fall, then it’s time for the annual literary tradition of Houghton Mifflin’s Best American Short Stories. The perennial series is selected initially by Katrina Kenison each year, with the final winners selected by a rotating guest editor. For 2005, the guest editor is Pulitzer prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon.

Chabon’s selections are pleasingly diverse, from the singular elegance of Alice Munro’s “Silence,” to Joy Williams’ eerie “The Girls,” to the supernaturally/emotionally devastating “Stone Animals” by Kelly Link. In his introduction, Chabon notes that he reads primarily for entertainment, yet his definition of entertainment isn’t shallow, as entertainment is often defined. Instead, his selections cover a broad range of human experience, past and present, realistic and supernatural, all entertaining, but all illuminating scenes of life, pleasant and not.

Some of the highlights of the current collection include the incomparable Munro’s story about a woman whose adult daughter disappears into a secluded cult, and how the mother comes to terms with the deafening silence of the daughter’s absence. J. Robert Lennon’s “Eight Pieces for the Left Hand” is a collection of short pieces, somewhat O’Henry-esque in nature. David Bezmozgis’ “Natasha” is a coming-of-age story with a particularly, brutally real-life element to it. Rishi Reddi’s “Justice Shiva Ram Murthy” addresses culture shock and the difficulties of being an elderly immigrant in a new land. Charles D’Ambrosio’s “The Scheme of Things” follows con artists at odds with each other when they find an elderly couple to target.

This year’s edition has a wide array of both realistic fiction (“Silence,” “The Scheme of Things”) and fiction that borders on supernatural or speculative (“Stone Animals,” “Hart and Boot”). It’s easy to see how Chabon views good stories as entertaining; while the themes of such stories as “Natasha” are all too real and distressing, the story itself is compelling. The stories include such supposedly “small” slice of life pieces as Nathaniel Bellows’ “First Four Measures,” in which a young boy learns a hard life lesson, to the emotionally-charged supernatural “Stone Animals,” in which a household in crisis finds their property being attacked in external ways.  

Some of the writing is ethereal, more focused on style than content, while other stories are written in a hard-edged, often funny style, such as the opening to Tim Pratt’s “Hart and Boot”:

“The man’s head and torso emerged from a hole in the ground, just a few feet from the rock where Pearl

Hart sat smoking her last cigarette. His appearance surprised her, and she cussed him at some length. The man stared at her during the outpouring of profanity, his mild face smeared with dirt, his body still half-submerged. Pearl stopped cussing and squinted at him in the fading sunlight. He didn’t have on a shirt, and Pearl, being Pearl, wondered immediately if he was wearing pants.”

Once again, the Best American series delivers a volume of highly readable—and, as Chabon would likely agree—entertaining stories.

Best American Short Stories 2004

Ah, it’s that time of year again: time for the annual edition of Houghton Mifflin’s exemplary anthology series, The Best American Short Stories. The 2004 collection is guest edited by one of my favorite writers, Lorrie Moore (although can I just say, Lorrie! You should be writing! Don’t spend too much time reading everyone else’s stuff!), and so I went into the book with heightened expectations. Lucky for me, Moore and series editor, Katrina Kenison, did not disappoint.

 

My one quibble might be with the number of well-known authors. Sometimes this series sheds light on little-known writers who deserve a wider audience, but

Moore

chose mostly high-profile authors: John Updike, Alice Munro, Annie Proulx, Charles D’Ambrosio, Edward P. Jones, and Thomas McGuane, all of whom had their stories originally published in The New Yorker. But at the same time, it’s hard to argue that their stories don’t deserve to be here; these are writers at the top of their game, and their stories are wonderful contributions to this series. Alice Munro, in particular, keeps writing and publishing some of the most beautiful and complex stories of any short story writer today, and her story “Runaway” is no exception.

 

Among the other gems in this year’s collection is the opening story, Sherman Alexie’s “What You Pawn I Will Redeem,” a deceptively simple story about an alcoholic homeless Indian in Seattle who sees what he believes to be his grandmother’s powwow regalia in a pawn shop window and sets out to find the money to buy it. Paula Fox’s entry, “Grace,” spotlights some of the lonely, lost people in today’s society who can only recognize their own emptiness when confronted with the companionship of a pet. And Charles D’Ambrosio’s story “Screenwriter,” set in a mental hospital, considers the fragile nature of sanity, especially when human relationships are involved.

 

There are critics who periodically claim the short story is dead; that readership in general is down, and those reading fiction only read novels. The Best American Short Stories series consistently demonstrates that there are artists out there creating wonderful stories that are not simply condensed novels, but works of art that stand on their own and would not benefit from being stretched into a novel. Readers who avoid the short story would do well to give them another chance, and this series is one of the best ways to explore the story.

Best American Short Stories 2003

I’m a sucker for this series. Every fall I start itching for the arrival of the latest Best American Short Stories with its brightly colored cover and guest writer/editor. Series editor Katrina Kenison culls through thousands of short stories to deliver 120 to the guest editor, who then chooses 20 for publication. The outcome, of course, is dependent on the quality of fiction published during the year, and there have been years where the pickings were slim. This year’s edition, selected by Walter Mosley, does not disappoint; it must have been a good year for short stories.

 

Published in publications as large and grandiose as The New Yorker or as trendy as Zoetrope and Tin House, the stories include pieces by well-established authors such as E.L. Doctorow and Louise Erdrich, but also by writers in the early stages of their careers, such as Ryan Harty and Dean Paschal.

 

The highlights of this diverse collection, for me, were Ryan Harty’s “Why the Sky Turns Red When the Sun Goes Down,” a haunting and eerie story of the father of a robot child who is having seizures, and Kevin Brockmeier’s heartbreaking “Space” (included in his amazing collection, Things That Fall From the Sky), in which a father and son struggle to come to terms with the death of their wife and mother. Adam Haslett’s story, “Devotion,” is quiet but powerful (and can be found in his collection, You Are Not a Stranger Here) as it examines the results of a long-ago decision made by a brother on behalf of his sister. ZZ Packer’s contribution, “Every Tongue Shall Confess” (included in her collection, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere) is a riotous but humane look at an evangelical women’s faith and loneliness, a topic which could have been clichéd or condescending in less capable hands than Packer’s. Dean Paschal’s “Moriya” follows a mechanically minded boy as he learns the deepest secrets of a robotic doll.

 

And now that I’ve read them, some of them more than once, I have little choice but to wait for 2004’s edition. Of course, as noted above, most of these stories have appeared or are set to appear in future collections by the individual authors. Looks like I’ll have plenty of choice reading material for the winter ahead.    

Best American Short Stories 2002

What can I say: I'm not an objective critic when it comes to Houghton Mifflin's Best American Short Stories series. I await each year's release like some people wait for the Super Bowl. I have a great deal of bookshelf space allotted to these brightly-colored volumes, each reflecting the (somewhat subjective) preferences of the revolving guest editors. The primary editorial selections are made by Katrina Kenison, who reads literally thousands of short stories each year in publications well-known and obscure; she then culls them down to 120 for the guest editor, who is usually a luminary of contemporary American literature. They, in turn, select what they believe to be the finest 20, with the remaining 100 referenced at the end.

What never fails to amaze me is the wide range of choices selected by the guest editor, who often chooses work very dissimilar to their own. These editors are nearly always generous with their praise and their range of choices. Sue Miller, the guest editor for 2002, is no exception. The stories comprising her volume vary from well-established story writers like Alice Munro and Richard Ford to less known writers like Meg Mullins and Karl Iagnemma. The stories are set from current day all the way back to the early 1900's, and take place all over the U.S. as well as Canada, Europe and post-World War II Japan.

The sheer enjoyment that comes from wallowing in these stories is not only of the high quality of each, but of the representation of the collective quality of today's writers. Imaginative, detailed, surprising, and always well written, these stories show that fiction in America is live and well.

As for personal favorites, I have several, but this is again an admittedly subjective list. Any time Alice Munro appears, she tops my list, and "Family Furnishings" was one of the best stories I read in The New Yorker last year. Michael Chabon's "Along the Frontage Road" and Richard Ford's "Puppy" both take seemingly innocent events and use them to inform and transform. Beth Lordan's "Digging," which is a twisty-turny tale of generations of Irish-Americans, uses a wonderful narrative technique that could have fallen apart in lesser hands. Melissa Hardy's "The Heifer," possibly my overall favorite, takes a decidedly saccharine-free view at pioneer life.

The bottom line is that readers can't go wrong when picking up a copy of Best American Short Stories. Unlike a novel, or a collection of stories by one author, there's little risk of not finding something worth reading in this collection.