The Best American Short Stories 2013 Author: Elizabeth Strout | Language: English | ISBN:
B00AXS6BK2 | Format: EPUB
The Best American Short Stories 2013 Description
“As our vision becomes more global, our storytelling is stretching in many ways. Stories increasingly change point of view, switch location, and sometimes pack as much material as a short novel might,” writes guest editor Elizabeth Strout. “It’s the variety of voices that most indicates the increasing confluence of cultures involved in making us who we are.” The Best American Short Stories 2013 presents an impressive diversity of writers who dexterously lead us into their corners of the world.
In “Miss Lora,” Junot Díaz masterfully puts us in the mind of a teenage boy who throws aside his better sense and pursues an intimate affair with a high school teacher. Sheila Kohler tackles innocence and abuse as a child wanders away from her mother, in thrall to a stranger she believes is the “Magic Man.” Kirstin Valdez Quade’s “Nemecia” depicts the after-effects of a secret, violent family trauma. Joan Wickersham’s “The Tunnel” is a tragic love story about a mother’s declining health and her daughter’s helplessness as she struggles to balance her responsibility to her mother and her own desires. New author Callan Wink’s “Breatharians” unsettles the reader as a farm boy shoulders a grim chore in the wake of his parents’ estrangement.
“Elizabeth Strout was a wonderful reader, an author who knows well that the sound of one’s writing is just as important as and indivisible from the content,” writes series editor Heidi Pitlor. “Here are twenty compellingly told, powerfully felt stories about urgent matters with profound consequences.”
- File Size: 909 KB
- Print Length: 387 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0547554826
- Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (October 8, 2013)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00AXS6BK2
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,151 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #3
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Anthologies & Literature Collections > United States - #7
in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Anthologies - #34
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > United States
- #3
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Anthologies & Literature Collections > United States - #7
in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Anthologies - #34
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > United States
The "Best American Short Stories" series is in its 35th year. As usual, the stories come from well-known writers and tell (usually) exquisite story vignettes in less than 20 pages. It seems that many of the writers have participated in recent editions of "The Best..." While the time periods range from the late 1800s (Jim Shepard) through some unspecified dystopian future (George Saunders'), the historical period does not burden the character development. Even those stories I didn't like for one reason or another were worth reading. I found six stories that I liked (denoted by a (*)), and only three or four stories that completely disinterested me, so I'd still rate this book as "worth buying."
It's difficult to explain pros and cons for this series, and it's incredibly hard to boil these stories into something even shorter, so here's a very vague idea of who and what this series entry contains (without spoilers).
1. Daniel Alarcon, The Provincials. Son arrives in father's hometown.
2. Charles Baxter, Bravery. Wife and husband's disaffected relationship.
3. Michael Byers, Malaria. Mental illness.
4. Junot Diaz, Miss Lora. Ethnic-and-sexual maturation.
5. Karl Taro Greenfeld, Horned Men*. Introspection during loss and rebuilding.
6. Gish Jen, The Third Dumpster. Ethnic second-generation immigration.
7. Bret Anthony Johnston, Encounters with Unexpected Animals*. Man's effort to protect his son.
8. Sheila Kohler, Magic Men. Dashed childhood innocence.
9. David Means, The Chair. Fatherhood.
10. Steven Milhauser, A Voice in the Night. A boy named Samuel, influenced by his religious counterpart.
11. Lorrie Moore, Referential. Mental illness.
12. Alice Munro*, Train.
Since these "BASS" anthologies have a different guest editor each year, it's inevitable that, for any given reader, some years will be better than others. And I'm afraid the 2013 edition was distinctly an "off" year for me. Last year I enjoyed almost every story in the book; this year I found most of them to be a failure in one sense or another.
Some notes on selected stories, covering all of the good ones and some of the failures:
"Miss Lora" by Junot Diaz is a story that I'd read before and didn't much like. I found its stylistic gimmickry pretentious and annoying: Diaz frequently switches to Spanish for words, phrases, and sentences, uses a second person narrative, and doesn't put quotation marks around dialog. But I read the story again, and this time I loved it. In a quietly minimalist way it brings its title character and her relationship with the protagonist to vivid life, making for a moving story. Personally I think it would have worked better without the stylistic gimmicks, but it's good in spite of them.
"Encounters With Unexpected Animals" by Brett Anthony Johnston has a nice title, but goes downhill from there, focussing on a 17-year-old girl who talks and acts like no 17-year-old ever has in the history of the human race.
"Magic Man" by Sheila Kohler creates its only interest or tension by putting a young girl at peril from a child molester. This works, as far as building tension. Catching fish by dynamiting a pond also works, but few would make the mistake of calling it art.
"The Chair" by David Means is a sort of stream-of-consciousness ramble about being a stay at home dad.
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