The Best American Short Stories 2013 Author: Visit Amazon's Elizabeth Strout Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0547554826 | Format: EPUB
The Best American Short Stories 2013 Description
From Booklist
In her introduction, editor Pitlor notes that, in the past, a period of distillation needed to pass before one could write about trauma. In today’s digital age, however, with the speed that our society shares news such as the Sandy Hook shooting last December, “while we are grieving, we are now writing.” Although none of the stories in this collection respond directly to current events, each story inhabits its own unique tragedy. These tragedies are those of everyday life, sometimes subtle and often humorous, and range from the acute loneliness of nineteenth-century New England farm life, to the doomed love between a teenage boy and a middle-aged woman, to divorce, to a strange neighbor arriving at a front door—naked—in the night. The setting of modern-day, nondescript America appears in these 20 stories to the point of feeling repetitive, but as a whole this collection is wildly divergent and entertaining, and each story is cultivated with a keen eye for voice and character. --Emily Roth
About the Author
HEIDI PITLOR is a former senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She is the author of the novel The Birthdays and has a novel coming in 2014.
- Series: Best American
- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (October 8, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0547554826
- ISBN-13: 978-0547554822
- Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 1.2 inches
- Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
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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