New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2007 by Edward P. Jones

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2007 Reviews

• 
  Lisa K

  Read several but not all stories.
  
  From introduction by Edward P. Jones: "Hither and yon, they still debate whether Washington, D.C. -- where I was born and came to know what is true and what is not so true -- is part of the South. It might well be that that debate is why I have never stood up straight and asserted that I was a bona fide son of the South. I'm in the room, but I'll stand in the corner for the evening, if it's all the same to you." (p. viii)
  
  Cary Holladay's story "Hollyhocks" takes place at Christmas 1953 and evokes a family saga, the tensions of a family of all sons, grown now, in just a few pages. Quite good.
  
  "Fourteen Feet of Water in My House," by Allan Gurganus, vividly reports the aftermath of a flood and so complemented Yellow House, which I'd read shortly before.
• 
  Constance Merritt

  Some very good stories, but weighted too heavily toward the violent and/or seedy side of life.
• 
  Elizabeth

  "Of all the foibles, the most fatal, perhaps, is the defective climax." Edgar Allen Poe
  
  Yes, well. Modern stories all seem to have this "leave you hanging" concept. Not a "leave you hanging, you figure it out," just "leave you." Unsatisfying.
• 
  Tammy

  Being a promiscuous reader, I love a good short story. Each author in the collection successfully wet my appetite for more of their work.
• 
  elizabeth

  so far so good, but i've only read two of them: "life expectancy" by holly goddard jones and "ghost town choir" by joshua ferris. the former centers around a high school basketball coach sleeping with one of his players, and it made me very eager to read more by holly goddard jones. you can read “life expectancy” here:
  
  http://www.kenyonreview.org/issues/wi...
  the latter is funny and lovely and features a fantastic line about men’s combs.
  
  one sort of strange thing about this book is that the contributors' notes immediately follow the story *and* feature a photograph. so you might have just read a sort of tender, bittersweet last line and then bam, there's this cute sheepish grin to totally distract you from what you've just read. both of the authors mentioned above sport such a grin, though jones's is more sheepish by far.
  
• 
  Emily

  there was an eerie similarity to a lot of these. not that they didn't feel like distinct stories, but you could tell they were chosen by a single brain. and i liked that, for the most part.
  
  a couple were longer and less engrossing than they probably should have been (here's looking at you, goaty one & ice-thingy). but most were quirky in a way that made me miss reading in a tree during a georgia summer - that hot-sweaty-front-porch-eccentric feel.
  
  'dogs with human faces' was the kicker. nicely offkilter style, and not since 'bullet in the brain' by tobias wolff has a short story made me cry. the final one about j-dubs out canvassing was wicked good too.
• 
  Jeanie

  I'm about 3/4 of the way through this outstanding collection. Those Southerners can sure tell a story, and Edward P Jones, one of my favorite authors (The Known World, Aunt Haggar's Children), has selected a great variety of funny, creepy, sad, and uplifting stories. If you only have time to read one of the stories, read Richard Bass's "Goats" - it's laugh-out-loud funny!
• 
  Charles Michael Fischer

  Solid anthology with nice range and aesthetic diversity. It's difficult to choose favorites here, but if I had to, I'd select Stephen Marion's "Dogs with Human Faces," Moira Crone's "The Ice Garden," and Jason Ockert's "Jakob Loomis." It's a shame New Stories from the South is no longer running.
• 
  Wilhelmina Jenkins

  This anthology contains a number of very good short stories with one incredible standout - "The Ice Garden".
• 
  Amber

  I enjoyed this story compilation. It had a lot of variety and even though I had read two of the stories before, I didn't mind reading them again.
• 
  Tracy

  I loved this collection of stories, except for one that I really did not like at all.
• 
  Sarah

  I was homesick. This was perfect. George Singleton is the man.