| Title | : | Granta 97: Best of Young American Novelists 2 |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1929001274 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781929001279 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 352 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2007 |
Granta 97: Best of Young American Novelists 2 Reviews
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Achei esse livro no meio da organização da minha estante durante a pandemia. Pensei em colocar direto na doação, mas resolvi dar uma chance. Grande erro. Dá pra salvar uns 2/3 contos, resto é díficil de dar uma avaliação acima de regular. E tal qual revista e jornal velho, que você já pula as notícias que já não fazem mais sentido (ex: melhores investimentos em 2020, escrito no começo do ano), aqui poderia ter feito uma curadoria e escolhido os autores jovens que - 13 anos depois - cresceram e viraram autores consagrados, mas não fiz isso. Outro erro.
Até porque, o editor do livro que fez a curadoria dos "jovens talentos" fez um trabalho pior que o Milton Cruz fazia em Cotia, só lembro do Jonathan Safran Foer e do Daniel Alarcon que se tornaram escritores bem sucedidos (gosto do JSF), resto imagino que não seguiu adiante.
Enfim, se já é difícil curar um bom livro de contos e fazê-los funcionarem independemente, o trabalho fica mais árduo quando se tratam de apostas do mercado literário. Curioso em saber se outras edições Granta alcançaram maior sucesso que essa... -
Picked this up at the Cornell bookstore, and took a long time to get through it. I can't say I am waiting with baited breath for America's future fiction if these are the best young novelists. There were some impressive pieces, I thought, particularly those by Dara Horn, Rattawutt Lapcharoensap and ZZ Packer, but the rest were either inconsequential or left me disquieted about the characters and ideas.
1) Daniel Alarcon -- A village boy moves to the city, clerks at a store, gets an unexpected visit from his girlfriend, ends up back in the village, and it all has the emotional punch of cotton wool ...
2) Kevin Brockmeier -- A very sweet story about a mute man who grows up in a city of people who love to sing, and how he raises parakeets to become his voice ...
3) Judy Budnitz -- An odd tale about an apathetic group of young pest controllers for public housing, who treat complainants rudely and then clear out an apartment building and pick through people's belongings. No one to love here, really ...
4) Christopher Coake -- Finally, a grown up story. A man is going through a divorce when a woman calls to tell him that another woman whom he barely remembers, but who lost her virginity to him, has died of cancer. He's feeling bad enough about himself already, but the revelation opens up new insights into himself and for the woman's friend, in ways surprising and poignant ...
5) Anthony Doerr -- At first, I couldn't relate to this distant and depressive couple trying to conceive through IVF, but by their second attempt, I was suddenly engaged ...
6) Jonathan Safran Foer -- Remember the first time you were asked to write an "experimental" story in creative writing? This is that story. Not one of his better efforts ...
7) Nell Freudenberger -- While this story doesn't go anyplace, it captures a nonagenarian former Latin teacher's voice and thought patterns almost perfectly, as she deals with a neighbor marrying an Indian bride he met on the Internet and her granddaughter bringing home a young man of Indian heritage ...
8) Olga Grushin -- An elegiac little postcard about an exiled Russian in Paris who finds a book from his family library in a used bookstore. Meh ...
9) Dara Horn -- More than any other offering, this reads like an excerpt from a novel in progress, in a good way. A young Union soldier in the Civil War is recruited for a dangerous spy mission based on his Jewish heritage. I don't want to give away more, but it has tension, pace and drama ...
10) Gabe Hudson -- Not sure how much I like the main character, a Vietnamese-American gung ho Marine with a troubled past ...
11) Uzodimna Iweala -- The teenager in this story is grieving over losing his best friend, is confused by his sexuality and his contending with a father who is struggling to understand him. It captures the confused tangle of young emotions
12) Nicole Krauss -- A lonely young woman recalls how she met a painter who did her portrait -- slight ...
13) Rattawutt Lapcharoensap -- A sharply drawn portrait of three young valets working at a played out, sprawling restaurant in Thailand, and their fateful encounter with the arrogant son of the founder. This is what short stories are meant to be ...
14) Yiyun Li -- Six Chinese women form a company to ferret out men who are being unfaithful to their wives or girlfriends. But when they meet with a sad young man for the first time, their inner thoughts reveal just how complicated their own relationships have been ...
15) Maile Meloy -- A couple and their daughter pick up a stranded man and woman after selecting their Christmas tree, with unsettling consequences (and no, this isn't a horror story). Very well written, but I wasn't quite sure how much I liked these characters ...
16) ZZ Packer -- A bracing snippet about an Indian ambush in the mountains of a troop of Buffalo Soldiers ...
17) Jess Row -- A somewhat aimless Yale freshman encounters a Hispanic student who is captivated by Islam and Jihad. Their encounters are vividly told, and Row really knows how to handle the clash of ideas in student argot, but the ending is enigmatically unsatisfying ...
18) Karen Russell -- An oddly affecting story about a barn where 11 of the horses are reincarnated presidents of the United States. Eisenhower refuses to believe he's really a horse. Ulysses Grant is noble and courageous. Woodrow Wilson keeps making up the next speech he has to present. And Rutherford Hayes thinks a sheep in a nearby pasture might be his wife Lucy ...
19) Akhil Sharma -- A young Indian-American boy watches his life change when his older brother becomes brain-damaged in a swimming accident. But for all the praying he does, he seems strangely detached from everyone; too much identification with a narrator, I think ...
20) Gary Shteyngart -- Gary is an acquired taste. I enjoyed The Russian Debutante's Handbook, but this excerpt of two diary entries by the fictional Lenny Abramov -- one of a trip to Rome where he announces he will never die and one of his return to a frighteningly militarized New York -- are disjointed and dissatisfying ...
21) John Wray -- An odd story about an odd boy, known only as Lowboy, who gets on a New York subway after he apparently has escaped from some kind of institution and sits next to a Sikh man who tries to treat him kindly, but also seems to realize he is encountering someone with mental illness. The interior strangeness of Lowboy's thoughts are well crafted, but I couldn't see myself living with him for a whole novel ... -
A great collection. It would be interesting to compare it to the New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 list (many authors are on both). I think one or two sentence reviews for each story is a good idea, yes? Note: I read these out of order, and am coming back to review many of the stories after some time has passed.
“The King Is Always Above The People” by Daniel Alarcón: I didn’t love this one, which was about a boy who gets a girl pregnant, then leaves town only to come back.
“Parakeets” by Kevin Brockmeier: A modern fairy tale about a dude who keeps a lot of parakeets in his house. Inventive but not a lot of substance.
“The Complaint” by Judy Budnitz: Funny story about a group of rat exterminators. A novel excerpt, so it didn’t hold well as a story (one of my complaints about this collection). I liked Budnitz’s stories in Nice Big American Baby better.
“That First Time” by Christopher Coake: Loved this one. A recently divorced guy meets up with a friend of an old flame who died of cancer. I won’t give away anything else, because Coake parcels out the details in such an expert manner. One of my favorites in the collection.
“Procreate, Generate” by Anthony Doerr: An expertly written story about a couple struggling to have a child. Very straightforward in a refreshing way.
“Room After Room” by Jonanthan Safran Foer: This, coupled with his New Yorker story, makes for interesting bedfellows. Both are experiments in language, and though I am all for experiments, I didn’t like either of these suckers.
“Where East Meets West” by Nell Freudenberger: Liked this one a lot. The best parts were about the main character, an old lady, just being bothered by the modern world around her. It was just great to hear this perspective. There were a lot of characters, and the story became unwieldy at times. Nevertheless, go Nell.
“Exile” by Olda Grushin: A novel excerpt that just didn’t hold up at all for me. Historical fiction that I just wouldn’t want to seek out. My least favorite one.
“Passover in New Orleans” by Dara Horn: Another fictive historical excerpt. As an excerpt, it held up a bit more than “Exile,” and was one of the most thrilling of the collection.
“Hard Core” by Gabe Horn: An excerpt that left me interested in the novel, American Buddah. This is a fucked up Marine Corps tale that made me want to read more.
“Dance Cadaverous” by Uzodinma Iweala: An interesting one. I won’t give anything away, only to say left me with some unshakeable images.
“My Painter” by Nicole Krauss: Not too into this one, but it was short. Still interested in Great House, however.
“Valets” by Rattawut Lapcharoensap: In my top five of the collection, this story featured one of the greatest final sentence turns I’ve ever read.
“House Fire” by Yiyun Li: About a group of old lady detectives who snoop on paramours. Very much liked.
“O Tannenbaum” by Maile Meloy: Possibly my favorite of the collection. About a couple who picks up some stranded hitchhikers to unnerving effect.
“Buffalo Soldiers” by ZZ Packer: A novel excerpt. I had just seen “True Grit,” and this was about a Western gunfight too. Seemed purposefully vague.
“The Answer” by Jess Row: Captured a dissident on campus very well. Liked.
“The Barn at the End of Our Term” by Karen Russell: One of the best and most playful stories in the collection, with the “how-did-she-think-of-that” concept of ex-Presidents being resurrected into horses, you really end up feeling for these mares as they deal with their new situation.
“Mother and Son” by Akhil Sharma: A novel excerpt that gets it right. Sharma’s talking God is hilarious.
“From the Diaries of Lenny Abramov” by Gary Shteyngart: Dug this. Ready to read Super Sad True Love Story.
“In the Tunnell” by John Wray: Say, I’ve been meaning to check out Lowboy… -
Granta 97, the second of the Best Young American Novelists, is another fantastic collection from the British journal of great contemporary writing. They already acknowledge the various ways in which, with ten years of hindsight, they've already had to reevaluate the mission they originally set out to accomplish. Namely, that there are many authors they completely missed in the first issue, that there was a goal they missed by excluding some of the even more talented even younger writers with their cutoff at forty, and that their mission is inherently impossible with only being able to publish and examine so much with the limitations of print and time. Still, they nailed this collection. I was deeply impressed with all of the stories, but some of the standouts are pretty obvious:
Brockmeier's story was absolutely magical. One of my favorites.
Coake's piece accurately depicts that lonely world we all find ourselves in thinking about the loves of our past and their influence on our identity and nostalgia for the past.
Doerr's piece manages to offer the many unanswerable questions about marriage, love, fertility, and parenthood in an amazing, well-constructed narrative.
Grushin presents the absolute epitome of book/library porn that turns me on every time. Loved it.
Iweala's piece on adolescence and sexuality is genuine and engaging.
Meloy presents some characters thrown into a situation that questions authority, safety, and the contrast between sexual and interpersonal needs and fidelity – all set during a particularly disorienting Christmas. Are there kids involved? Of course there are.
Packer's story of an ambush between buffalo soldiers and native Americans was transporting and genius.
Row's piece about the cultural clashes and identity search when we arrive at college is accurate and wonderful. Nails the concept of appropriation, transformation, and assimilation.
Russell's story was one of my favorites. Truly magic, hilarious, and well written. One of those stories where you wonder where the genesis of the concept even came from – unique among things I have read my entire life. Amazing.
Shteyngart's piece was all over the place as only he can be, and it was a pleasure to read. A lot of fun with a sharp wit and energetic execution. -
Okay, I guess that since this is titled "The Best of Young American Novelists" and not "The Best of Young American Writers" I probably shouldn't gripe about the novel excerpts, most of which felt exactly like what they are: pieces cut out of a (probably) soon-to-be-published larger work. In general, though, a decent representation. Works that stood out for me: Brockmeier, Doerr, Freudenberger, Iweala, Lapcharoensap, Li, Russell, Wray.
(And now, a moment of silence to mourn my lost youth. I will never be a Young American Novelist. Nor, since I've graduated, will I be a Best New American Voice.) -
Looking for a new book? Tired of the same ten writers? Well, pick this guy up.
I found this volume invaluable in helping me discover new writers. Beyond that, the stories in this collection are just amazingly well-written. Granta is always top-notch, but they really went above and beyond in this collection to get the very best stories from the very best young novelists writing in the U.S. today. Because of this book, I discovered Maile Meloy and Nell Freudenberger, just to name two.
This is a great, great collection of short stories. And I am not - NOT - a short story gal. -
Quite a good collection of short stories with no duds, and some truly excellent entries that make the whole very worthwhile. I dug 'Exile', 'Passover in New Orleans' was quite excellent and very interesting, I loved 'Valets' for some reason, and 'From the Diaries of Lenny Abramov' is a fantastic little number that got me thinking I ought to track down some of Shteyngart's stuff. 'Where East Meets West' did a fantastic job of creating a sympathetic character that I still disliked intensely, a great examination of generational schism and angst. "O Tannenbaum' was very good, and 'That First Time' was a fine piece. Other stories didn't resonate with me at all, but they were a minority.
Therefore, even though I did not like all the stories in this collection equally, basically all of them contained something worth reading or thinking about. And so I'd rate the collection quite highly. Odds are you will find something quite to your taste in the pages of Granta 97 – and a lot of fun advertisements, too, that will make you wonder about how many people are striving for successful, published author status and how foolish it even is to try yourself, when these Harvard and Yale graduates and prodigies are being ignored in droves and becoming obscure and giving up, or whatever they're doing that I have no idea of, probably just letting the years pass through their fingers and keeping on trying and such... it is enough to make a no-name graduate with literary aspirations feel like a moldy sponge in a very dirty bathroom, in the very back of a house down the street from where the real show is happening. -
I'm currently picking through this collection of short stories that these young writers wrote in the thirty days after they were placed on the Granta Young American Novelists list. I went to a reading recently where Akhil Sharma (one of the chosen) basically said that only three of the writers in these pages are worthy of the title. I've only read two of the stories -- Karen Russell's and Rattawut Lapcharoensap's -- both of which I loved (full disclosure: I was in the same program as Russell so I might be biased).
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Sure, you've got to take them with a grain of salt, but I love Best lists. Also, checking out the lauded competition and deciding whether they deserve to be lauded. This anthology happens to include some of my favorite "young American" writers (K-Brock, Judy Budnitz, Yiyun), though maybe not their best pieces. The Maile Meloy story was pretty fucking awesome, and I'm now intrigued by Dara Horn, who I'd never heard of. And though I was lukewarm to maybe half the pages in this book, there was only one story I found offensively bad, and wouldn't you know, it's by the youngest of the young.
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Like most collections of short stories, this book is uneven. I didn't like the ads at all; I mean, what's cool about reading a "sponsored" book? That's right, I forgot, it's a literary magazine... and so what? Then it's alright the sponsors thing?
Notwithstanding, there are some really good stories. I liked Jonathan Safran Foer, Cristopher Coake, Nicole Krauss (love her :D) and Gary Shteyngart made me laugh. There is one more I forgot.
And it's way too long... -
Come in tutte le raccolte di racconti ci sono alti e bassi. Sicuramente il racconto che mi è piaciuto di più è quello di Karen Russell, che avevo amato già ne "Il collegio di Santa Lucia per giovinette allevate dai lupi".
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i love 2 of these stories
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Standouts: Daniel Alarcon, Rattawut Lapcharosensap, Maile Meloy, Akhil Sharma.
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This is a terrific collection and a great way to discover new young writers.
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Embarrassingly I forgot to read this volume, and skipped to the next issue directly. I have a hard time sitting down to fiction lately.
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A surprise freebie present from Granta....
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more of 3.5 stars actually. nicole krauss' story was magical <3
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I learned that I'm now just a few months short of official middle age. sigh.
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page 220: Rattawut Lapcharoensap, 'nuff said.
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favorite author from this volume: Anthony Doerr.
