| Title | : | The Best American Short Stories 2010 |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0547055323 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780547055329 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 421 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2010 |
The Best American Short Stories 2010 Reviews
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I devoured this book. All the rules I've been studying, all the presumed intelligentsia and invisible gatekeepers I've been cowering under have been pushed aside, fictionalized, for what I've learned from these stories. Established writers and emerging writers alike are represented in this annual collection of short fiction, each with a quick contributor bio and first account on how and why said story came to be. Here lies the lesson. Several of the authors - established at that - confessed said story took them weeks, years even, and began with varying, unpredictable directions of inspiration. I feel I have stumbled upon a community of writers without ever exchanging a handshake or a gaze. I am not alone.
In the introduction Richard Russo describes a first encounter with Isaac Bashevis Singer and a visit the writer made to the university where Russo was an assistant professor. When one of the students asked, "Mr. Singer, what is fiction?" he answered succinctly, unwavering, "to entertain, and to instruct." Always, "to entertain" came first, and always with a pause before finishing. Let us not take ourselves too seriously with language, a-hem. If we do not first entertain - and in these attention grabbing times of twitter, facebook, and texting, especially - then it is impossible to instruct, to relay an experience, a feeling, a bit of personal humanity. Every one of the 2010 stories grabbed me.
Bravo! -
Always a weird experience reading a BASS anthology: so many solid stories, and yet such narrow bandwidth. It's like 20 stories all written by people who pretty much share exactly the same idea of what a short story can/should be. Hope you like realism, 'cause that's what you're getting! Nevertheless: good stories!
Favorites:
"Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events" by Kevin Moffett (bad title but great story!)
"The Cowboy Tango" by Maggie Shipstead (left me sobbing)
"The Hollow" by James Lasdun (read like Ron Carlson, which is high praise)
"Into Silence" by Marlin Barton (not sure I really bought the end but I loved the idea of it as well as the rest of the story)
also greatly enjoyed the Danielle Evans, Ron Rash, Brendan Mathews, Lauren Groff... a lot of them, really. Didn't really enjoy the Jennifer Egan, but definitely admired the craft. There were only a few I really hated and we'll just let those slide. -
The Best American Short Stories series is for better or worse directed towards a certain type of reader. The stories contained in the 2010 collection skew decisively towards those readers who enjoy literary fiction over genre based fiction. By the same hand, I can’t say that readers of literary fiction will fall head over heels in love with this collection either. As a reader, I personally am looking for an emotional experience that sticks with me, even after I’ve put the book aside and most of the stories contained within this collection failed that test. With that said, if readers are in to vivid descriptions and flowery prose than they should check this out. Just wasn’t for me.
-
I always look forward, every year, to the latest edition of The Best American Short Stories. It is the mother load of all anthologies, the place to be, the Oscars for the literary short form, the hub of emerging stars and infamous masters.
In this edition, Richard Russo has done, overall, a marvelous job of selecting truly gripping stories, ones that stick with you, gnaw at you long after you've read them. Most of the selections are truly stellar, with the top two stories--"Cowboy Tango," by Margaret Shipstead, and "Delicate Edible Birds," by Lauren Groff--true works of beauty. They are the kind of stories, if you are a writer, that make you sit up and say "I freaking wish I'd written that," the kind that make you work harder, get up earlier, and try again.
Other notable pieces include Steve Almond's "Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched"--a fabulous tale about a psychiatrist and his poker-playing patient; "The Laugh"--a haunting tale in Africa; and "My Last Attempt to Explain to You What Happened with the Lion Tamer" by Brendan Mathews--a second-person love story to an aerialist.
My two least favorite were "Raw Water" by Wells Tower and "The Netherlands Live With Water" by Jim Shepard--two stories originally written for and published in McSweeney's--as they were too focused on creating a futuristic world than telling a story.
Overall, 2010 was an enjoyable selection, and one that accomplishes what every good short story collection should: inspiration for the aspiring writer. -
I'm going to refrain from assigning any stars to a collection I was fortunate enough to be a part of; and although there were so many amazing stories by writers I'd never encountered before (and some old favorites), it would probably be impolitic to list those without commenting on every single other story in the collection... So I won't do any of that. What I WOULD like to do is take an informal survey.
For those of you who've read Maggie Shipstead's amazing story "The Cowboy Tango": If someone came up and handed you that story out of context and told you it was by Annie Proulx, would you have believed it? (This isn't to suggest for a second that Shipstead is being derivative -- she's not, and if anything it would be like Proulx branching out in a different direction. I'm raising the question because of the setting, the bleakness, and the quality of the writing.) For me, the biggest giveaway actually would've been the title: Proulx has written so many cowboy stories, including a marvelous one called "Them Old Cowboy Songs," that she'd hardly go around calling more stories "cowboy." So if anyone's game... Would you have fallen for it? If not, why not? If so, why? -
Oh gosh, I finished this so long ago I'm no longer sure of the date! Why did I leave this loose end for so long? Because there was one story in it that gripped me so strongly I told my husband "You have got to read this." In characteristic (his reading tastes are different than mine) yet uncharacteristic (he often takes my suggestions as demands) fashion, he never got around to it, but now that I am home to the two boxes of books I shipped from Texas to California (thanks, Half-Price Books!), I am updating Goodreads, so.
I have to say, I picked this one up on a bit of a whim from the especially short-lived Mission Valley Crown Books, but Richard Russo -- whom I've never really read, and now I'm wondering if I should -- proved an exceptional editor. This collection was tight -- really excellent stories, and no obvious themes/fascinations/peculiarities/obsessions that could clearly be attributed to the guest editor. I also really enjoyed that it was chock full of names I hadn't heard of rather than the usual suspects. Nicely done, sir!
The story I was trying to get my husband to read was Rebecca Makkai's "Painted Ocean, Painted Ship." Now admittedly, this one really got to me because it's about an academic, but WOW. This may be my new "You're Ugly, Too" (Lorrie Moore), which coincidentally I had also recently reread since it was in that New York stories from the New Yorker anthology. I'm not familiar with Makkai, but this definitely made me want to read more... even if for me they may read more like horror stories or thrillers than lit fic!
Other standouts: Marlin Barton's "Into Silence" -- I don't know how that didn't win the O. Henry award, because it absolutely should have! Jennifer Egan's "Safari," which is apparently the literary equivalent of a painter's sketch, and made me curious to read the full novel (or to continue my crappy metaphor, see the finished painting). Danielle Evans' "Somebody Ought to Tell Her There's Nowhere to Go" is just devastating. Okay, honestly, I just went through the rest of the TOC and really, there's not a bad one in the bunch (maybe the weakest are the two from a themed issue of McSweeney's, but let's just go ahead and blame my nemesis Dave Eggers for that -- and I hate to say it, but the other McSweeney's piece in here is darn good). I don't know if I can say that about any other Best American collection. -
Some of my favorites:
"My Last Attempt to Explain What Happened with the Lion Tamer" - My favorite. It's told in second person which is so hard to do well. It's about a clown in a traveling circus who falls in love with the new trapeze artist, who has an affair with the lion tamer. A laugh-out-loud love triangle that is superbly written.
"Painted Ocean, Painted Ship" - My next favorite. A beautiful, successful college professor and her ridiculous self-doubt and inability to be happy with her life is charged with racial discrimination by a student.
"Into Silence" - Set during the Depression, Janey is a middle-aged deaf woman who lives at home with her controlling, manipulative mother. A WPA photographer arrives to rent out their spare room while he is working in the area, and Janey discovers he knows ASL and the mother grows suspicious of their friendship.
"Delicate Edible Birds" - Set during WWII as the Nazis are about to storm Paris, a group of photographers and journalists knock on the wrong door to ask for fuel and food. A Nazi sympathizer and his two sons lock them in their barn and refuse to let them out until the female in the group agrees to have sex with him.
"Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched" - An amateur-card-playing psychologist's new patient is a professional card player with an anger management problem. The psychologist soon discovers the physical tic that happens when the player is bluffing and has the opportunity to use it to his advantage.
"The Valetudinarian" - A hypochondriac retiree in Florida celebrates his birthday with the help of a Russian prostitute, compliments of a friend. Hijinks (and a bit of unbelievability) ensue.
"PS" - A divorcee writes a letter to her former marriage counselor after her marriage breaks down due to her husband becoming a born again Christian. Quite funny.
"The Ascent" - A young boy finds a crashed plane in the Smoky Mountains and brings home some of its contents to his drug-addict parents. A bit unbelievable at times, but so sad in the end.
"All Boy" - Story of an effeminate, 10-year-old boy and his in-the-closet father. -
Truly outstanding collection - one of the best ever. The book begins with one sotry about a psychiatrist who loses a poker game to a former patient, another about a deaf girl who meets a photographer who felt guilty about how his father abused his deaf mother, and a third about two cousins – a younger one who loved animals but had no money and an older one who became a lawyer but never found love in his life like the younger one. There is a sotry (Safari) by Jennifer Egan, who just won the Pulitzer prize for fiction writing. There is another about a lion tamer who falls in love with a trapeze lady and one (PS by Jill McCorkle) about a lady writing to her psychologist after he did nothing to help her marriage even though her husband became a fundamentalist. Some great ones were: All Boy (Lori Ostlund), about a very particular and proper young boy whose father leaves the family for a male lover, The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach (Karen Russell), about a boy who falls in love with the girlfriend of his older brother while the family breaks apart as the mother loses her job due to a seagull, and The Netherlands Live with Water (Jim Shepard) which seems like a novelette about a future in which the waters from global warming are inundating Holland.
Books like this remind me of how great literature can be. They also introduce me to great authors I never would learn about anywhere else. -
I picked this book up from the library because a friend of mine loved Richard Russo's Empire Falls, and I figured reading his selection of 2010's best American stories would give me an idea of his sensibilities. Well, he's a bit of a downer.
Which isn't to say he chose poorly. Many of the stories here are powerful and captivating - I'd flip the pages and suddenly find myself at the end, hungering for more. It's only detriment is that many of the stories present sad situations that only dig themselves deeper into sadness, desperation, and despair, without trying to find some consolation - true to heart tragedies. Admittedly, this is mostly a personal issue, but it's still hard to read more than one of these stories in a sitting.
But Russo's selections still provided some gems, like Karen Russell's "The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach," Brendan Matthews's "My Last Attempt to Explain What Happened to the Lion Tamer," and Jim Shepard's "The Netherlands Lives with Water," stories that are as playful as they are inventive, creating worlds just slightly off-kilter from ours, and yet as real as any other realistic fiction. There are stories mired in quiet sadness, the frenetic energy of war, and wild waves of desire. Just because the stories weren't all to my liking, doesn't mean they were bad - on the contrary, I'd recommend this addition to the Best American Short Stories collection to anyone who enjoys literary fiction. -
I read this book on-and-off from spring of 2011 to fall of 2012, nearly two full years. I skipped about eight or so stories because I didn't like the first pages, but the other 250-ish pages were well-read. Half of these stories are puffed-up ramblings from over-educated toolbags who got their Masters in English and are trying way too hard. My point is, some feels soulless, or in the best case scenario, some tales feel like the medium and form of the "short story" is more the message; how it was written seems more important to these authors than the plot or the story itself. Only about 8 of these 20-plus short stories are worth more than one reading, but those good ones are jaw-dropping. Three stars for the 1/3 of this book that was creative and masterful, two stars off for over half of it being over-written "look at me" shlock. Just write your debut novel already so you can start teaching in you hometowm eight years from now when it doesn't work out for you. Especially Tea Obreht and Jennifer Egan. Blah.
3/5
MH -
I love this series...short stories are awesome. And these short stories are always incredible - so different from one another and so amazingly well-written.
I especially loved:
My last attempt to explain to you what happened with the lion tamer - Brendan Matthews
All boy - Lori Ostlund
The Netherland lives with water - Jim Shepard
Raw water - Wells Tower
One of my favorite parts of this series is the section of Contributors' Notes at the back of the book. There is a (very) brief bio of each writer, and their explanation of where their story came from and how it developed. It's like seeing behind the curtain to the creative process and an intimate look at what talent can do with the smallest kernel of an idea. -
I thought this collection would be worth the read, but it really wasn't. Some stories are OK. They can pull you in, but some stories crumble halfway through. After I read the first story, Steve Almond's "Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched", I thought the stories would get better, but they didn't, except for a few. Two stories I really liked was "The Laugh" by Tea Obreht and "The Cowboy Tango" by Maggie Shipstead. One story I particularly disliked (and ended up skipping) was Jim Shepard's "The Netherlands Lives with Water". It was too dry and dealt too much with a specialized area for me to really connect with the story or the characters.
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The Best American series, for those unfamiliar with the series, consists of a range of stories published in US and Canadian journals from the previous year. About a hundred of these are then read and selected by the guest editor, and, in this year’s case, Richard Russo did the choosing, selecting a final list of 20 stories, now collected in this volume.
I found the stories in this volume exceptionally compelling and readable – with many being of the über-length variety, running to many pages, with the writers taking time to tell the tales, really letting each story breathe and glow. -
This is the first collection of Best American Short Stories that I have read, and I was pretty disappointed. I really enjoyed some of the stories, specifically "The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach" by Karen Russell and "The Cowboy Tango" by Maggie Shipstead. Some of the stories in this collection do have heart, but the majority lack originality, vision, and even authenticity. Maybe it's a problem with the editor of this edition, but it does not make me feel very optimistic about the state of American writing if this was the best they could come up with.
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Five Favorites:
1. The Valetudinarian by Joshua Ferris
2. Delicate Edible Birds by Lauren Groff
3. My Last Attempt to Explain to You What Happened with the Lion Tamer by Brendan Mathews
4. Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events by Kevin Moffet
5. The Ascent by Ron Rash -
I adore the Best American Short Stories series. The short story is a difficult form, and I have such respect for writers who can carry it off. The short story is basically the middle child of writing. Longer than the poem, which can contain a flash of brilliance or insight and stand on its own, but shorter than the novel which can create a backstory and layers of conflict and self-discovery that the characters must work through. At it's worst, the short story can be perfectly awful - boring or self-important or incomprehensible. But at it's best, the short story can live inside of you and continue to grow, such as Jhumpa Lahiri's "A Temporary Matter" or Tobias Wolff's "Bullet in the Brain", one of the greatest stories I've ever heard read in my entire life.
This short story collection, like all short story collections, will live in my car, to be pulled out and read at rest stops and doctor's offices and restaurants and any other place where I find myself stuck for a 30 minute interval.
I just hit two stories that immediately became lodged in my brain. In each collection, there are always a handful that stand out as needing to be mentioned specifically. These two came one right after the other this time. (2.4.2014) The first one to leap off the page was The Hollow by James Lasdun. It tackles so many questions within its slim form - what it means to be ever moving with the force of industry and technology and what that does not only to the land we all live on but to the people who care for it and work it. What it is to be "neighborly" and how well we actually know and care for the people who form the tapestry of our everyday lives. The difference between how we perceive someone and what they actually are like. The difference between the stories we hear about someone and the reality they exist in. Plus, I just loved the voice of this particular narrator.
The second story was Painted Ocean, Painted Ship by Rebecca Makkai. I think that, in part, this one appealed to me because the main character in it is a woman who is going through the engagement and wedding planning process, something I'm currently doing in my own life. Unlike me, though, she becomes more and more upset with the entire process, what her emotions related to it actually mean, and who she thinks her fiancee is. I loved the parallels between this story and Rime of the Ancient Mariner, loved how this once incident in her life set in motion this chain of events which caused the world she thought she know to come crashing down around her. I don't know how much insight she had into her own hand in this - it seemed like the protagonist really struggled to see the world as anything more than "against her" and that she kept wanting anyone but her to take responsibility for things in life. But I loved seeing the inner workings of that struggle, of accidental loss and purposeful shoving away of things. And I loved the insight of how *little* insight she actually had. "But she wondered, even as she told the story, if she wasn't still missing the point." Don't we all sometimes wonder that about the stories we have told so frequently that we no longer take the time to look at the meaning behind them?
(April 2015) Another story that stood out to me - PS by Jill McCorkle. Maybe not the strongest story, but it's in a letter format, which always appeals to me. It's a letter from a woman to her former therapist. Naturally, this appealed to me. (As my dad would say, "The monkey likes to see the monkey do.") There are so many clients that I wonder about in the years after they leave me. Was I at all helpful? Did they find any peace or comfort? Could they tell when I liked them or didn't feel connected to them? Did they ever leave or marry or trust so-and-so? All those unanswered questions…sometimes it's nice to imagine those answers, and I think this story does a bang-up job of doing that.
September 2015 - I read a few more stories over this past week and again, a few stood out. Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events by Kevin Moffett. I love his viewpoint - it's so hard to make a main character who is simultaneously completely self-centered and still sympathetic, still someone who you can understand their viewpoint. There are so many wonderful father and son tales out there, and this one stands all of them on their heads, in a way. I think that the older we get, the more we begin to re-examine the moments which have made up our lives, the ones that we nurse and sulk over as we grow into adults. Those moments when you think you understand yourself and your family dynamic, only to look at the story from a slightly different point of view and wonder - have I been wrong this whole time? The older we get, the more complicated our family relationships become, particularly with our parents. It's as if we have been living with only 5% of the information we needed to have. As we age, we get more information, but it is compounded with more stories, more details. That doesn't necessarily need to more wisdom though, does it?
"Imagine a time for your characters, Hodgett used to say, when things might have turned out differently. Find the moment a choice was made that made other choices impossible." (p. 233)
"Never end your story with a character realizing something. Characters shouldn't realize things: readers should." (p 243)
The other standout story from this go-round has been All Boy, by Lori Ostlund. I don't really have a lot to say about this particular one, except that it perfectly captures what it's like to be not only a child, but an outsider child. One where you know you don't fit, you understand that the peers and adults around you operate a different frequency from you, but you can't for the life of you figure out how to get on that frequency. And, what's more, frequently you don't even see why anyone would *want* to be on that frequency!
January, 2016 - I know I finished this some time in December, but now for the life of me I can't think of when. The last five stories in the book were good, but definitely nothing memorable, save for one. "The Cowboy Tango" by Maggie Shipstead. That story was lovely in its pain and artfulness. The characters were deep and real and raw. You could really sense what it is to love, to be lonely, to want, to lose. In other words, a perfect cowboy story. -
So the B.A.S.S. series, while self-aggrandizing on one hand, also shows a limited scope of consideration, as despite the length of publications they may list in the back every year, there is a much wider scope of zines out there, even if you keep to the realm of the literary. This has always been a limitation of this series, fueled no doubt by publishing interests to keep a certain pantheon of publications in the spotlight, but this particular volume crossed the line with me. Guest editor Richard Russo’s intro set a vapid tone for his aesthetic, but regardless of the guest editor’s peccadilloes, I usually find some stories to warrant at least a couple of stars (and yes, this is an early appearance by the amazing Karen Russell), but series editor Heidi Pitlor’s foreword, to first try to champion the dinosaurs BASS has always championed and try to make us weep for their growing obsolescence, but the also lament that at one point of the production stage she wondered if they would have enough stories for this year’s volume?!? When a publication so limited in scope double downs on it and acts like there’s nowhere else in the world to look for competent writing, I got little love for your efforts.
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I read this a number of years ago and my biggest takeaway then was the foreword by Richard Russo. I don't always like the selections the visiting editors pick in these anthologies, but Russo did a terrific job and his forward about the purpose of writing was a significant essay for me on the subject.
So I revisited this, I had to purchase it again, but the reason I did was that I did not recall any of the stories, just the foreword. I wrote a blog entry about it and referenced it online and noticed there were quite a few authors I like included in the anthology, despite me not remembering the stories by them included in this collection.
This includes stories by Jennifer Egan, Lauren Groff, Rebecca Makai, Tea Obreht, and Ron Rash, all authors that I know from their novels, and like as well.
It is interesting how the different editors pick stories that can create anthologies wildly different one to another. This is a good one, I think anyway. I had to buy it online, but the delivered price was like 5 bucks, I thought this was certainly worth that much. -
When it comes to short stories, I have a particular like. I tend to enjoy stories that are funny, and that have a plot arc. Those stories that are meditative and in which not much happens don't do much for me.
As one would imagine, the latest volume of Best American Short Stories (a series that goes back over thirty years) has some stories that I thought were wonderful and some that I thought were ho-hum, and one that I could not make heads or tails of. I give guest editor Richard Russo credit for making his selection broad enough in scope so as to seem all the same. I know I would be tempted to.
There are twenty stories here, arranged in alphabetical order by author. One of my favorites led things off, "Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched," by Steve Almond, a comic tale of a psychologist who is treating a professional poker player. Another favorite is "Painted Ocean, Painted Ship," by Rebecca Makai, about a Coleridge scholar who finds herself cursed after she shoots an albatross, and "The Cowboy Tango," a gorgeous story by Maggie Shipstead about unrequited love on a dude ranch.
In the next tier I would add these stories with exceptionally long titles: Danielle Evans' "Someone Ought to Tell Her There's Nowhere to Go," concerning a veteran who forms an attachment to an old girlfriend's daughter, "My Last Attempt to Explain to You What Happened With the Lion Tamer," by Brendan Matthews, which has the bonus of being narrated by a clown, and Karen Russell's "The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach," which carries some of the magic realism that most of her work has.
Joshua Ferris' "The Valetudinarian," about an elderly man getting the gift of a prostitute for his birthday, starts promisingly, but I found that it fell apart at the end. "All Boy," by Lori Ostlund, which details a young homosexual boy and his closeted father, has its moments, but seems overly precious to me. Kevin Moffett's "Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events" is a bit of a mind-bender, with the story about a short-story writer and all the rules of writing, which Moffett proceeds to break, one by one.
The stories I didn't care for include Charles Baxter's "The Cousins" and Jim Shepard's "The Netherlands Lives With Water," a cautionary tale about the effects of global warming. It may have been because I read this story before going to bed, but I had no idea what was happening in it, although I perk up at the pornographic elements of it.
I solidly enjoyed a good three-quarters of the stories, though, so it was well worth the investment. -
One standout story in this collection is Steve Almond's "Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched," a tale of modern-day hubris focused through the fashionable lenses of poker and therapy. Another story of our cultural moment comes in "Someone Ought to Tell Her There's Nowhere to Go," in which Danielle Evans processes the war in Iraq and the inevitable damage to its soldiers and their families. I like the voice of that piece a lot--its frantic, cynical bewilderment over how to give our dear ones what they want without understanding at all why they want it. When the main character's daughter wants to see the latest young, hypersexualized singing act, he finds he cannot escape the singer, Mindy, who "was on the side of the bus they took to the zoo. Mindy was on the nightly news, and every other commercial between kids' TV shows. Mindy was on the radio, lisping, 'Pop my bub-ble, pop pop my bub-ble.' What he felt for Mindy was barely short of violence."
Lauren Groff takes us back in time to Paris during the Nazi invasion in "Delicate Edible Birds," a heartbreaking story of how love in a time of war is really just one more piece of luggage to haul around, maybe protect or trade away. Rebecca Makkai and James Lasdun turn in some eerie page-turners, but the funniest story has to be "My Last Attempt to Explain to You What Happened with the Lion Tamer," with its priceless first line, "He wasn't even a good lion tamer, not before you showed up."
A McSweeney's contribution by Kevin Moffett shows rare emotional depth in its portrayal of a father/son relationship. Ron Rash's "The Ascent" captures another desperate parent/child dynamic with an elegant grace. Two stories, "The Netherlands Lives with Water" and "Raw Water," look forward into the near future in order to explore some dystopian consequences of global warming and genetic engineering, respectively.
All the stories repay the reading, though a few stories might be better skimmed. Richard Russo seems to enjoy an eclectic taste. With its diversity of mood, theme, setting, and character, there is sure to be at least one stand-out story in this collection for every reader. -
Okay guys,
It's seven in the morning in the land of the midnight sun. I cannot
sleep so here are my musings on "The Best American Short Stories:
2010" edited by Richard Russo that I have just finished.
This collection is by definition eclectic. I found it annoying. It is
somehow difficult to switch between different styles, personalities of
authors, their approaches to telling a story. It feels, pardon the
term, promiscuous.
The language of all stories is precise, polished and beautiful. I am
jealous. Moreover, in his introduction, the editor stated that he
appreciated when the author's command of the language was used to move
the story forward rather than to show off. It felt this way to me as
well.
Many stories, though, irritated me for the lack power in them. The
authors added short descriptions to their stories at the end of the
book: how they come up with the stories, how they work on them, what
they wanted to tell. It was an interesting glimpse into creative
process. However, it did show why there often was no punch to a story:
it never meant to be. To a lot of authors, a short story is a kind of
literary still life: a pretty composition with characters, background
and a few colorful vignettes. The stories are seldom drawn from the
authors' personal experiences. They sound fake. The authors proudly
talked about how to came up with the characters, how they borrowed
particularly sexy lines. It was offputting. A couple of stories had
sci-fi elements in them. I guess, due to my early-in-life overdose of
sci-fi, they read particularly phony.
I think it is just not my cup of vodka. I like the stories raw,
relationships effed up and hopeless or at least grim, future --
uncertain, hope -- ephemeral, life -- deadly. Few of the stories can
be compared to any in "The Drown" or "Boys and Girls Like You and Me" -
I had an assignment to read four stories from this collection, but I couldn't stop there. Russo has done a great job of picking twenty powerful short stories from the hundred (or is it two hundred?) screened for him by Pitlor, who purportedly reads them all.
It would be difficult to narrow these stories down to my favorites, but the ones I most loved, I suppose, are the ones that I can recall off the top of my head, as the characters really stuck with me. Lauren Groff's "Delicate Edible Birds" relates the heartbreaking story of a woman reduced to offering her body in exchange for freedom during the German takeover of Paris. I'd read this before in "Glimmer Train," but couldn't resist reading it again. Ron Rash's "The Ascent" haunted me the night I read it. How I wanted to rescue that child! Lori Ostlund's "All Boy" gave new meaning to coming "out of the closet." Tea Obreht's "The Laugh" is an awesome depiction of guilt, love and friendship, with a fair dose of horror thrown in for breathtakingly good measure. Marlin Barton's "Into Silence" pulled off something I'd never have the guts to attempt--a main character who is deaf. Yet he did it with grace, holding our hands as he led us into her silence. (Disclaimer: Barton is an acquaintance. Regardless, this is an amazing story). Joshua Ferris's "The Valetudinarian" made me laugh out loud, but though the ending was sad, it left me feeling weightless.
Okay, you get the picture . . . this is a great collection, and I could go on. I can't wait until the 2011 anthology comes out! -
Like most collections, this was a mixed bag. There were a couple, I simply didn't finish, but most were pretty solid literary efforts with a few trying their hand at literary genre (mystery or SF)with usually less that stellar results. Many were moving though they tended to be on the depressing side; a few were laugh out loud funny. Steve Almond's "Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punished" opens the book very strongly but was followed by one of the stories I couldn't finish. Not a great beginning -- perhaps that was why it took a year to finish. Jennifer Egan's "Safari" was solid but would have been better without the metafictional ending. It was followed by Danielle Evan's "Someone Ought to tell Her There's Nowhere to Go" a deeply moving story about the effect of war on daily lives in America. Lori Ostland's "All Boy" and Maggie Shipstead's "The Cowboy Tango" were solid and "PS" by Jill MCCorkle was hilarious. The book ends with Wells Tower's "Raw Water," easily the best of the genre tinged story though the ending was weak and somewhat predictable.
If you like literary fiction, this is a good intro to a lot of fine writers. It also makes me want to subscribe to Tin House -- where many of my favorite stories were originally published. -
Another excellent collection! (And this year's Foreword is well worth reading.) So now it's time for everyone's favorite game - which did you like most? For me, Lauren Groff's "Delicate Edible Birds" was in a class by itself, a perfect story. Looking forward to her books.
My other favorites were Steve Almond's "Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched," Marlin Barton's "Into Silence," Lori Ostlund's "All Boy," Ron Rash's "The Ascent," Jim Shepherd's "The Netherlands Lives Under Water" and Maggie Shipstead's "The Cowboy Tango," reminiscent of Proulx. (Someone publish a book by this writer!)
I was also impressed by Egan, Ferris and Obrecht, rising stars I hadn't read before.
Sorry to pick on anyone, but I didn't like Brendan Matthews's "Lion Tamer" story, which I think is being overpraised. It's cute but gimmicky and has no character development, just types. You know how it will play out from the first page. I was also disappointed in Charles Baxter's story, though I normally love Baxter, and I thought Wells Tower's story was an empty exercise, and I've read much better stories by him.
Anyone have any tips from the backlist of further recommended stories? I'm eager to try more. -
This is a book I dipped into over the course of several months when I was between novels. When I finish reading a full-length novel (and especially when I've enjoyed it), I'm reluctant to dive right into another lengthy story. Yet, I am a fiction addict. So a short story collection fits the bill.
Not every story was a winner, but that's why we slog through these collections -- for the stand-outs. And stand-outs there were.
Some of my favorites which made the book worth the price of admission:
Least Resistance by Wayne Harrison
My Last Attempt to Explain to You What Happened With the Lion Tamer by Brendan Mathews (Wonderfully clever.)
Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events by Kevit Moffett (some of the best writing I've come across in a short story)
All Boy by Lori Ostlund (Amazing!)
The Seagull Army Descends on Stong Beach by Karen Russell
The Cowboy Tango by Maggie Shipstead
Raw Water by Wells Tower (Great story, and sticks to you like a staticky sock. Keep thinking about what it all meant. Quite Stephen King-esque. Calls to mind King's short story The End Of the Whole Mess which was genius.)
A decent collection of short fiction overall. -
This year's - wait, last year's - Best American Short Stories is a great collection. It's not that some years are bad; it's that the editor's picks don't jibe with my sensibilities, tastes or whatever those things are that make me like one order of sentences and choice of words over another.
There are no weak link stories in this collection. I could name the ones I liked least, but I they're still good stories; I will say that Ron Rash's 'Ascent', Maggie Shipstead's 'The Cowboy Tango' and Brendan Mathews 'Last Attempt To Explain To You What happened To The Lion Tamer' crushed me. I want to read the collection again because right now I don't even remember them all! The second reading of a story is usually deeper, and more rewarding for me anyway. I could hear echoes of Richard Russo's voice in the stories; in all the writing there is the pathos of people doing their best but knowing struggle and sabotage as hard habit, and an always honest, sometimes weary humor. And all the stories are so personal. None of them skim the water, there's just a plunge happening. Thanks for the collection Mrs Pitlor and Mr Russo.
