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The Best American Short Stories 2015
In his introduction to this one hundredth volume of the beloved Best American Short Stories, guest editor T. C. Boyle writes, “The Model T gave way to the Model A and to the Ferrari and the Prius . . . modernism to postmodernism and post-postmodernism. We advance. We progress. We move on. But we are part of a tradition.”
Boyle’s choices of stories reflect a vibrant range of characters, from a numb wife who feels alive only in the presence of violence to a new widower coming to terms with his sudden freedom, from a missing child to a champion speedboat racer. These stories will grab hold and surprise, which according to Boyle is “what the best fiction offers, and there was no shortage of such in this year’s selections.”
Mulling over the question of character likability, series editor Heidi Pitlor asks, “Did I like these characters? I very much liked reading their stories, as did T. C. Boyle.” Here are characters who “are living, breathing people who screw up terribly and want and need and think uneasy thoughts.”
The siege at Whale Cay / Megan Mayhew Bergman --
Fingerprints / Justin Bigos --
Happy endings / Kevin Canty --
Moving on / Diane Cook --
Bride / Julia Elliott --
The big cat / Louise Erdrich --
You'll apologize if you have to / Ben Fowlkes --
The fugue / Arna Bontemps Hemenway --
The largesse of the sea maiden / Denis Johnson --
M & L / Sarah Kokernot --
Jack, July / Victor Lodato --
Sh'khol / Colum McCann --
Thunderstruck / Elizabeth McCracken --
Motherlode / Thomas McGuane --
Madame Lazarus / Maile Meloy --
Kavitha and Mustafa / Shobha Rao --
About my aunt / Joan Silber --
North / Aria Beth Sloss --
Unsafe at any speed / Laura Lee Smith --
Mr. Voice / Jess Walter
Boyle’s choices of stories reflect a vibrant range of characters, from a numb wife who feels alive only in the presence of violence to a new widower coming to terms with his sudden freedom, from a missing child to a champion speedboat racer. These stories will grab hold and surprise, which according to Boyle is “what the best fiction offers, and there was no shortage of such in this year’s selections.”
Mulling over the question of character likability, series editor Heidi Pitlor asks, “Did I like these characters? I very much liked reading their stories, as did T. C. Boyle.” Here are characters who “are living, breathing people who screw up terribly and want and need and think uneasy thoughts.”
The siege at Whale Cay / Megan Mayhew Bergman --
Fingerprints / Justin Bigos --
Happy endings / Kevin Canty --
Moving on / Diane Cook --
Bride / Julia Elliott --
The big cat / Louise Erdrich --
You'll apologize if you have to / Ben Fowlkes --
The fugue / Arna Bontemps Hemenway --
The largesse of the sea maiden / Denis Johnson --
M & L / Sarah Kokernot --
Jack, July / Victor Lodato --
Sh'khol / Colum McCann --
Thunderstruck / Elizabeth McCracken --
Motherlode / Thomas McGuane --
Madame Lazarus / Maile Meloy --
Kavitha and Mustafa / Shobha Rao --
About my aunt / Joan Silber --
North / Aria Beth Sloss --
Unsafe at any speed / Laura Lee Smith --
Mr. Voice / Jess Walter
416 pages, Paperback
First published October 6, 2015
351 people are currently reading
1175 people want to read
About the author
T. Coraghessan Boyle
156 books2,994 followersT. Coraghessan Boyle (also known as T.C. Boyle, is a U.S. novelist and short story writer. Since the late 1970s, he has published eighteen novels and twleve collections of short stories. He won the PEN/Faulkner award in 1988 for his third novel, World's End, which recounts 300 years in upstate New York. He is married with three children. Boyle has been a
Professor of English at the University of Southern California since 1978, when he founded the school's undergraduate creative writing program.
He grew up in the small town on the Hudson Valley that he regularly fictionalizes as Peterskill (as in widely anthologized short story Greasy Lake). Boyle changed his middle name when he was 17 and exclusively used Coraghessan for much of his career, but now also goes by T.C. Boyle.
Professor of English at the University of Southern California since 1978, when he founded the school's undergraduate creative writing program.
He grew up in the small town on the Hudson Valley that he regularly fictionalizes as Peterskill (as in widely anthologized short story Greasy Lake). Boyle changed his middle name when he was 17 and exclusively used Coraghessan for much of his career, but now also goes by T.C. Boyle.
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March 9, 2025
4.5 overall.
This is the first volume in this enduring, annual series that I read cover to cover. (In the past, it seems I picked up a volume here and there and read individual stories.) Reading the 100th entry in the series seemed to have its own, unique charm somehow.
It was, of course, edited by T.C. Boyle - an author whose work I've recently been exploring in earnest. I was curious to know how Boyle's taste would determine his selections. As I understand it, he had to choose 20 stories out of 120 initially selected by series editor Heidi Pitlor. So I guess Boyle's choices reflect a mixture of his taste and a recognition of who told the most captivating stories - regardless of whether or not they felt snug inside his wheelhouse. (Naturally, he had to run with what he had to work with.)
A hefty handful of them did, in fact, read like they were speaking personally to Boyle's worldview (and I'll mark those with asterisks).
What ended up being particularly useful to me happens at the end of the volume: there is a listing of each writer's brief bio, along with their reflections on how the volume's stories evolved and were born. In the case of 5 of them - Bigos' 'Fingerprints', Elliott's 'Bride', 'Hemenway's 'The Fugue', Lodato's 'Jack, July'*, Rao's 'Kavitha and Mustafa' - what the writers said about their stories increased my appreciation of narratives I had felt were well-written but still not as compelling as I might have liked. I normally feel a work should, more or less, speak for itself - but the addendums were still helpful.
Two of the stories - Erdrich's 'The Big Cat' and McGuane's 'Motherlode'* - I just didn't much care for, even though they felt somewhat accomplished.
That leaves 13 out of 20 that held my interest rather effortlessly (numbered here in order of appearance):
1) Bergman's 'The Siege at Whale Cay'*: a rather infectious, island romp, in which Marlene Dietrich is captured with enticing, appropriately cryptic flair. Fun stuff.
3) Canty's 'Happy Endings'*: mild, mid-life-crisis trials and tribulations when discovering a midwest massage parlor. Best line (re: Christian Singles): "We're all Christian and we're all single, but we're not always both at the same time."
4) Cook's 'Moving On'*: seems thematically adjacent to Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale'.
7) Fowlkes' 'You'll Apologize If You Have To'*: will appeal to fans of Gardner's 'Fat City'. This comes with a satisfying twist at the end.
9) Johnson's 'The Largesse of the Sea Maiden'*: effective combo of the philosophical and the existential. Rather moving.
10) Kokernot's 'M & L': acutely observed tale of the years-later aftermath of a rape.
12) McCann's 'Sh'khol'*: tense, claustrophobic depiction of parental angst on the dark periphery of near-loss. I actually felt my 'heart' drop when the protagonist hits on the exact definition of the story's title. I was also struck by the line: He looked as if he had dressed himself in the third person.
13) McCracken's 'Thunderstruck': a story I admired more than I actually loved. It reads as a bit noticeably contrived but everything about parental anxiety feels accurate.
15) Meloy's 'Madame Lazarus': notable for the way a female author is able to delicately capture the reality of an aging, ex-hetero gay man.
17) Silber's 'About My Aunt'*: well-rounded / vivid re: character / cultural study.
18) Sloss' 'North'*: esp. intriguing for the way the narrator's intrepid / wayward explorer father sees God in everything: There are things my father wishes he could explain. Things he would like my mother to understand. The sky there is God, he wants to tell her. The ice is God. The fat, hideous walrus is God. The ending is lightly bittersweet.
The opening story and these last two (below) were my favorites:
19) Smith's 'Unsafe at Any Speed'*: cinematic, freewheeling and riotous, with great dialogue. Killer opening that set a pitch-perfect tone: The day after his forty-eighth birthday was the same day Theo Bitner's seventy-five-year-old mother friended him on Facebook. The closing sentence is equally killer.
20) Walter's 'Mr. Voice'*: Early on, the narrator's voice arrests in a way similar to Smith's: I was nine then, and Mother thirty-one. She had four or five boyfriends at any given time--she eliminated them like murder suspects.
This is the first volume in this enduring, annual series that I read cover to cover. (In the past, it seems I picked up a volume here and there and read individual stories.) Reading the 100th entry in the series seemed to have its own, unique charm somehow.
It was, of course, edited by T.C. Boyle - an author whose work I've recently been exploring in earnest. I was curious to know how Boyle's taste would determine his selections. As I understand it, he had to choose 20 stories out of 120 initially selected by series editor Heidi Pitlor. So I guess Boyle's choices reflect a mixture of his taste and a recognition of who told the most captivating stories - regardless of whether or not they felt snug inside his wheelhouse. (Naturally, he had to run with what he had to work with.)
A hefty handful of them did, in fact, read like they were speaking personally to Boyle's worldview (and I'll mark those with asterisks).
What ended up being particularly useful to me happens at the end of the volume: there is a listing of each writer's brief bio, along with their reflections on how the volume's stories evolved and were born. In the case of 5 of them - Bigos' 'Fingerprints', Elliott's 'Bride', 'Hemenway's 'The Fugue', Lodato's 'Jack, July'*, Rao's 'Kavitha and Mustafa' - what the writers said about their stories increased my appreciation of narratives I had felt were well-written but still not as compelling as I might have liked. I normally feel a work should, more or less, speak for itself - but the addendums were still helpful.
Two of the stories - Erdrich's 'The Big Cat' and McGuane's 'Motherlode'* - I just didn't much care for, even though they felt somewhat accomplished.
That leaves 13 out of 20 that held my interest rather effortlessly (numbered here in order of appearance):
1) Bergman's 'The Siege at Whale Cay'*: a rather infectious, island romp, in which Marlene Dietrich is captured with enticing, appropriately cryptic flair. Fun stuff.
3) Canty's 'Happy Endings'*: mild, mid-life-crisis trials and tribulations when discovering a midwest massage parlor. Best line (re: Christian Singles): "We're all Christian and we're all single, but we're not always both at the same time."
4) Cook's 'Moving On'*: seems thematically adjacent to Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale'.
7) Fowlkes' 'You'll Apologize If You Have To'*: will appeal to fans of Gardner's 'Fat City'. This comes with a satisfying twist at the end.
9) Johnson's 'The Largesse of the Sea Maiden'*: effective combo of the philosophical and the existential. Rather moving.
10) Kokernot's 'M & L': acutely observed tale of the years-later aftermath of a rape.
12) McCann's 'Sh'khol'*: tense, claustrophobic depiction of parental angst on the dark periphery of near-loss. I actually felt my 'heart' drop when the protagonist hits on the exact definition of the story's title. I was also struck by the line: He looked as if he had dressed himself in the third person.
13) McCracken's 'Thunderstruck': a story I admired more than I actually loved. It reads as a bit noticeably contrived but everything about parental anxiety feels accurate.
15) Meloy's 'Madame Lazarus': notable for the way a female author is able to delicately capture the reality of an aging, ex-hetero gay man.
17) Silber's 'About My Aunt'*: well-rounded / vivid re: character / cultural study.
18) Sloss' 'North'*: esp. intriguing for the way the narrator's intrepid / wayward explorer father sees God in everything: There are things my father wishes he could explain. Things he would like my mother to understand. The sky there is God, he wants to tell her. The ice is God. The fat, hideous walrus is God. The ending is lightly bittersweet.
The opening story and these last two (below) were my favorites:
19) Smith's 'Unsafe at Any Speed'*: cinematic, freewheeling and riotous, with great dialogue. Killer opening that set a pitch-perfect tone: The day after his forty-eighth birthday was the same day Theo Bitner's seventy-five-year-old mother friended him on Facebook. The closing sentence is equally killer.
20) Walter's 'Mr. Voice'*: Early on, the narrator's voice arrests in a way similar to Smith's: I was nine then, and Mother thirty-one. She had four or five boyfriends at any given time--she eliminated them like murder suspects.
October 23, 2015
I have a theory that has proved true now for at least a couple of years. If a person loves the author who is guest editor for this series, there is a really good chance that person will love many, if not all, of the stories that writer collected for the "Best American Short Stories." This was my experience with 2013's by Elizabeth Strout, which was one of the best gathering of stories that I have ever encountered, and true of T.C. Boyle's collection this year. One or two of these I had seen before when they came out in magazines (like Malie Meloy's Madame Lazarus") and some authors I was familiar with and enjoyed before like Jess Walter and Elizabeth mcCracken and Louise Edrich. But there were authors here that I had never heard of before and a few stories that were pretty close to perfect, including Colum McCann's "Sh'kohl," a story so haunting and so compelling I will remember it forever. After treasuring that story and researching the author, I noticed that he has a brand new collection of stories out with that story in it, and I cannot wait to read it. I could go on about others in this collection, but I would just say to anyone who is a story person, dig in and savor. . . I read it cover to cover and almost thought each story here was incredible.
April 10, 2019
مجموعه داستان کوتاه "بهترین داستانهای کوتاه آمریکایی" شامل بیست داستان کوتاه، هر سال به انتخاب یکی از نویسندگان آمریکایی جمع آوری میشود و هر دوره هم دیدگاه خاصی برای انتخاب مد نظر قرار میگیرد.
قابل توجه مترجمین محترم: از نکات مثبت این مجموعه داستان ها، معرفی نویسندگان جوان و کمتر دیده شده ای است که حتا برای خودِ آمریکایی ها هم کمتر شناخته شده اند.
نسخه ی سال 2015 رو من نسبت به سال قبلش ( The Best American Short Stories 2014) ضعیفتر دیدم. برای همین الان که کتاب تموم شده تنها داستانهایی رو معرفی میکنم که بیشتر تو خاطرم مونده و تاثیر عمیقتری داشتند. مطمئنا بقیه داستانها هم زیباست اما سلیقه من به اینها نزدیکتر بود:
1-You’ll Apologize If You Have To - BEN FOWLKES : والاس مشت زنی ست سابقه دار که همانطور که در آخرین فایتش در قفس درب و داغون شده، در زندگی هم تقریبا ناک اوت شده. از همسرش جدا شده (با یک دختر) و همسرش با وکیلی مایه دار ازدواج کرده. برای آرام شدن در فضای باز (خط ساحلی) سیگاری میکشد که یک رهگذر که اهل همان نزدیکی است به والاس گیر میدهد و میخواهد آن اطراف دیگر سیگاری نکشد و ادامه ماجرا...
داستانی خوش خوان، سریع، و عمیق از ارتباطات انسانی.
2- Sh’khol - COLUM MCCANN: داستان مادری است 48 ساله که پسری نا شنوا را به فرزندی پذیرفته. در تعطیلات فرزند بریا تست کردن لباس شنای اهدایی نامادری اش صبح زود وقتی نامادری هنوز در مستی شب قبل است از ویلا خارج میشود و به دریا میرود و بر نمیگردد و ادامه ماجرا...
داستانی است با توصیفات حالات درونی بی نظیر و تعلیقی سنگین
ترجمه این داستان در کتاب دیدن از سیزده منظر آمده است.
شخول در زبان عبری به معنی 'داغ فرزند دیده' است.
3- Madame Lazarus - MAILE MELOY: داستان مرگ یک سگ خانگی به نام مادام لازاروس، متعلق به یک بازنشسته ی تنها. یک تراژدی که پیری و کهولت و تنهایی را به ظریف ترین شکل ممکن به نمایش میگذارد. این داستان چنان تاثیر مرثیه واری دارد که اشک به دیده ی آدم مینشاند. :((
4- Happy Endings - KEVIN CANTY: داستانی طنز در خصوص پیر مردی که پس از مرگ همسرش دست به برخی لذات ممنوعه (از نقطه نظر خودش) میزند: ماساژ با هپی عندینگ :)). و حالا دارد در میابد که خب چه اشکالی دارد و چرا اصلا این همه سال خودم را گرفتار محدودیت های اخلاقی کرده بودم.
5- The Siege at Whale Cay - MEGHAN MAYHEW BERGMAN: داستان زنی فرا پولدار (همجنس گرا) به نام جویی که جزیره ای هاوایی در اختیار دارد و هر از چندی با دختر یا زنان مورد نظرش معاشقه ها و روابط کوتاه مدتی بر قرار میکند. یکی از این دعوت شدگان دختری است به نام جورجیا (با خانواده ای مذهبی) که شناگر نمایشی در یک آکواریوم است و پس از صرف مدتی در جزیره و ایجاد رابطه ی احساسی با جویی، با ورود بازیگری دیگر به نام مارلین دتریچ دچار پریشانی میشود و ادامه ماجرا....
داستان بسیار جذابی است بر اساس زندگی واقعی زنی بنام جویی کارستیرز.
6- Mr. Voice - JESS WALTER: داستان رابطه ی مادر و دختری. مادری که با لوندی و نمایش های جنسی زندگی اش را میگذراند. در جایی به دخترش توصیه میکند که زیبایی مثل یک حساب بانکی است که بالاخره باید یک روز نقدش کرد و ازدواج با یک مرد پولدار هم همان نقد شدن زیبایی و جذابیت است. مادر با مردی مهربان، روشن فکر و خوش صدا ازدواج میکند اما مادر جای خودش را به ناپدری میدهد و ادامه ماجرا.
چیزی که باعث ممتاز شدن این داستان میشود پیچیدگی شخصیت مادر است، و تاثیری که در زندگی دخترش به صورت داثمی بر جای گذاشته. و این که در انتها میتوان حق را به او (مادر) داد، یا حتا نداد.
قابل توجه مترجمین محترم: از نکات مثبت این مجموعه داستان ها، معرفی نویسندگان جوان و کمتر دیده شده ای است که حتا برای خودِ آمریکایی ها هم کمتر شناخته شده اند.
نسخه ی سال 2015 رو من نسبت به سال قبلش ( The Best American Short Stories 2014) ضعیفتر دیدم. برای همین الان که کتاب تموم شده تنها داستانهایی رو معرفی میکنم که بیشتر تو خاطرم مونده و تاثیر عمیقتری داشتند. مطمئنا بقیه داستانها هم زیباست اما سلیقه من به اینها نزدیکتر بود:
1-You’ll Apologize If You Have To - BEN FOWLKES : والاس مشت زنی ست سابقه دار که همانطور که در آخرین فایتش در قفس درب و داغون شده، در زندگی هم تقریبا ناک اوت شده. از همسرش جدا شده (با یک دختر) و همسرش با وکیلی مایه دار ازدواج کرده. برای آرام شدن در فضای باز (خط ساحلی) سیگاری میکشد که یک رهگذر که اهل همان نزدیکی است به والاس گیر میدهد و میخواهد آن اطراف دیگر سیگاری نکشد و ادامه ماجرا...
داستانی خوش خوان، سریع، و عمیق از ارتباطات انسانی.
2- Sh’khol - COLUM MCCANN: داستان مادری است 48 ساله که پسری نا شنوا را به فرزندی پذیرفته. در تعطیلات فرزند بریا تست کردن لباس شنای اهدایی نامادری اش صبح زود وقتی نامادری هنوز در مستی شب قبل است از ویلا خارج میشود و به دریا میرود و بر نمیگردد و ادامه ماجرا...
داستانی است با توصیفات حالات درونی بی نظیر و تعلیقی سنگین
ترجمه این داستان در کتاب دیدن از سیزده منظر آمده است.
شخول در زبان عبری به معنی 'داغ فرزند دیده' است.
3- Madame Lazarus - MAILE MELOY: داستان مرگ یک سگ خانگی به نام مادام لازاروس، متعلق به یک بازنشسته ی تنها. یک تراژدی که پیری و کهولت و تنهایی را به ظریف ترین شکل ممکن به نمایش میگذارد. این داستان چنان تاثیر مرثیه واری دارد که اشک به دیده ی آدم مینشاند. :((
4- Happy Endings - KEVIN CANTY: داستانی طنز در خصوص پیر مردی که پس از مرگ همسرش دست به برخی لذات ممنوعه (از نقطه نظر خودش) میزند: ماساژ با هپی عندینگ :)). و حالا دارد در میابد که خب چه اشکالی دارد و چرا اصلا این همه سال خودم را گرفتار محدودیت های اخلاقی کرده بودم.
5- The Siege at Whale Cay - MEGHAN MAYHEW BERGMAN: داستان زنی فرا پولدار (همجنس گرا) به نام جویی که جزیره ای هاوایی در اختیار دارد و هر از چندی با دختر یا زنان مورد نظرش معاشقه ها و روابط کوتاه مدتی بر قرار میکند. یکی از این دعوت شدگان دختری است به نام جورجیا (با خانواده ای مذهبی) که شناگر نمایشی در یک آکواریوم است و پس از صرف مدتی در جزیره و ایجاد رابطه ی احساسی با جویی، با ورود بازیگری دیگر به نام مارلین دتریچ دچار پریشانی میشود و ادامه ماجرا....
داستان بسیار جذابی است بر اساس زندگی واقعی زنی بنام جویی کارستیرز.
6- Mr. Voice - JESS WALTER: داستان رابطه ی مادر و دختری. مادری که با لوندی و نمایش های جنسی زندگی اش را میگذراند. در جایی به دخترش توصیه میکند که زیبایی مثل یک حساب بانکی است که بالاخره باید یک روز نقدش کرد و ازدواج با یک مرد پولدار هم همان نقد شدن زیبایی و جذابیت است. مادر با مردی مهربان، روشن فکر و خوش صدا ازدواج میکند اما مادر جای خودش را به ناپدری میدهد و ادامه ماجرا.
چیزی که باعث ممتاز شدن این داستان میشود پیچیدگی شخصیت مادر است، و تاثیری که در زندگی دخترش به صورت داثمی بر جای گذاشته. و این که در انتها میتوان حق را به او (مادر) داد، یا حتا نداد.
November 3, 2015
Another great year for BASS--T. C. Boyle has selected a collection that boasts verve, wit, and graceful prose. There was only one I was lukewarm on (the atmosphere and details of "The Fugue" kept striking me as fundamentally off, and war stories sink or swim on exactly those two qualities); the rest were all good-to-excellent. I'll pare it down to a couple of stand-outs, but further note that this was a smooth, exceedingly enjoyable reading experience throughout, and the collection as a whole is highly recommended.
Megan Mayhew Bergman's "The Siege at Whale Cay" is a vividly realized and exceedingly strange bit of fictionalized history about a wealthy woman who took control of an island, holed up with an endless succession of short-term girlfriends, and tested everyone's patience. Bergman's invention is Georgie, a former tank mermaid, whose already tense and imperfect relationship with Joe is complicated by the arrival of Marlene Dietrich and her movie star friends; Joe and Marlene's affair makes Georgie realize the instability of the whole island. Georgie makes for an appealing emotional center, the tension ratchets up inescapably, and the writing is so vivid you can feel the heat and smell the suntan oil.
Louise Erdrich's "The Big Cat" is a darkly comic piece--or maybe comically dark would be more apt--about a former small-time actor who married into a family of loudly-snoring women. The saga of his marriage and divorce is told lightly (Erdrich's descriptions of the snoring are perfect, as is the note that the narrator may have rushed into his second marriage out of sheer relief at finding a woman he could properly sleep beside) but in the end, as implied by the title, turns out to have real teeth.
Victor Lodato's "Jack, July," is a haunting look at meth addict Jack wandering the streets on a hot summer day, looking for water, shelter, and another hit. The crystal has altered Jack's sense of time and his comprehension of what other people are saying or doing--a funny but painful bit being when his ex-girlfriend tells him he has to leave because the man she's with now, Eric, will be home soon; Jack, unable to piece together who Eric is, assumes she is mispronouncing "Jack," and earnestly asks if she means him. Most of all, he circles around the issue of his family--but there's no reconciliation to be found here, and the story closes with Jack compromising his sense of self even further. Lodato puts you perfectly inside Jack's head.
Elizabeth McCracken's "Thunderstruck" is a nuanced look at a family in crisis, repose, and then crisis again, as they move temporarily to Paris in an attempt to reboot their teenage daughter Helen's sense of self. This story of domestic life and tragedy is delicately handled, especially as McCracken moves to center the story around the father struggling to handle a difficult situation alone, and flirting with rebuilding his life along totally different lines. The material could be sensationalized, but McCracken wisely keeps it all under careful control.
Finally, Laura Lee Smith's "Unsafe at Any Speed" is a tightly-written, well-paced, and bright story about a midlife crisis that takes an abrupt left turn. Theo, the story's protagonist, is rankled by a life--or at least a morning--where his family (all annoyingly chummy with each other) and his boss all lecture him, and decides to takes $5,000 from his joint checking account and buy a restored Corsair. He ends up (sort of) on the run with a dental receptionist, in an energetic and surprising twist to maximize the day: can he get the car, the affair, the impulsive job-wrecking, and the illegal activity out of the way before midnight? Smith has a great comic tone and a lot of warmth towards Theo and his companion for the day and invests what could have been a satire with enough humanity to make it winning instead of blistering.
I hate to leave out so many good stories: Kevin Canty's sad-but-hopeful "Happy Endings," about a man discovering seedy massage parlors late in life, and struggling for connection; the science-fictional "Moving On," where widowed spouses are kept in shelters and prepped for their eventual remarriages (this works on more of a metaphorical level than a literal one, and the world-building is often tenuous at best, but the emotions are powerful and the point-of-view is perfectly done); Ben Fowlkes's tense, coiled "You'll Apologize If You Have To," about a fighter recovering from a spectacular knockout, with memorable strangeness and a great milieu; Sarah Kokernot's "M & L," about the long aftermath of trauma, and the nostalgia of love and friendship, with some really beautiful writing; and Jess Walter's "Mr. Voice," a surprisingly sweet domestic tale about fathers, mothers, and daughters.
I'd say the themes of this collection are family, loss, and strangeness, and the authors handle them expertly. Thanks to Boyle and series editor Heidi Pitlor for another great installment in the series.
Megan Mayhew Bergman's "The Siege at Whale Cay" is a vividly realized and exceedingly strange bit of fictionalized history about a wealthy woman who took control of an island, holed up with an endless succession of short-term girlfriends, and tested everyone's patience. Bergman's invention is Georgie, a former tank mermaid, whose already tense and imperfect relationship with Joe is complicated by the arrival of Marlene Dietrich and her movie star friends; Joe and Marlene's affair makes Georgie realize the instability of the whole island. Georgie makes for an appealing emotional center, the tension ratchets up inescapably, and the writing is so vivid you can feel the heat and smell the suntan oil.
Louise Erdrich's "The Big Cat" is a darkly comic piece--or maybe comically dark would be more apt--about a former small-time actor who married into a family of loudly-snoring women. The saga of his marriage and divorce is told lightly (Erdrich's descriptions of the snoring are perfect, as is the note that the narrator may have rushed into his second marriage out of sheer relief at finding a woman he could properly sleep beside) but in the end, as implied by the title, turns out to have real teeth.
Victor Lodato's "Jack, July," is a haunting look at meth addict Jack wandering the streets on a hot summer day, looking for water, shelter, and another hit. The crystal has altered Jack's sense of time and his comprehension of what other people are saying or doing--a funny but painful bit being when his ex-girlfriend tells him he has to leave because the man she's with now, Eric, will be home soon; Jack, unable to piece together who Eric is, assumes she is mispronouncing "Jack," and earnestly asks if she means him. Most of all, he circles around the issue of his family--but there's no reconciliation to be found here, and the story closes with Jack compromising his sense of self even further. Lodato puts you perfectly inside Jack's head.
Elizabeth McCracken's "Thunderstruck" is a nuanced look at a family in crisis, repose, and then crisis again, as they move temporarily to Paris in an attempt to reboot their teenage daughter Helen's sense of self. This story of domestic life and tragedy is delicately handled, especially as McCracken moves to center the story around the father struggling to handle a difficult situation alone, and flirting with rebuilding his life along totally different lines. The material could be sensationalized, but McCracken wisely keeps it all under careful control.
Finally, Laura Lee Smith's "Unsafe at Any Speed" is a tightly-written, well-paced, and bright story about a midlife crisis that takes an abrupt left turn. Theo, the story's protagonist, is rankled by a life--or at least a morning--where his family (all annoyingly chummy with each other) and his boss all lecture him, and decides to takes $5,000 from his joint checking account and buy a restored Corsair. He ends up (sort of) on the run with a dental receptionist, in an energetic and surprising twist to maximize the day: can he get the car, the affair, the impulsive job-wrecking, and the illegal activity out of the way before midnight? Smith has a great comic tone and a lot of warmth towards Theo and his companion for the day and invests what could have been a satire with enough humanity to make it winning instead of blistering.
I hate to leave out so many good stories: Kevin Canty's sad-but-hopeful "Happy Endings," about a man discovering seedy massage parlors late in life, and struggling for connection; the science-fictional "Moving On," where widowed spouses are kept in shelters and prepped for their eventual remarriages (this works on more of a metaphorical level than a literal one, and the world-building is often tenuous at best, but the emotions are powerful and the point-of-view is perfectly done); Ben Fowlkes's tense, coiled "You'll Apologize If You Have To," about a fighter recovering from a spectacular knockout, with memorable strangeness and a great milieu; Sarah Kokernot's "M & L," about the long aftermath of trauma, and the nostalgia of love and friendship, with some really beautiful writing; and Jess Walter's "Mr. Voice," a surprisingly sweet domestic tale about fathers, mothers, and daughters.
I'd say the themes of this collection are family, loss, and strangeness, and the authors handle them expertly. Thanks to Boyle and series editor Heidi Pitlor for another great installment in the series.
December 10, 2015
I loved this book. Though I rarely read these collections straight through, this book had an incredible mix of voices. Each story grabbed me from the first paragraph, and I was introduced to some writers I’d never read before, but will be on the lookout for in the future. This is a book you want to own – I checked this book out from the library, but I plan to buy my own copy. Writers like Megan Mayhew Bergman, Justin Bigos, Jess Walter, Diane Cook, and Sarah Kokernot will keep you turning the pages, marveling at these terrific stories.
October 31, 2015
I've been reading this series, this annual collection for years and this edition is outstanding. T.C. Boyle has selected a wonderful set of stories. Normally I find only a handful of outstanding stories each year but this time at least half the selections are outstanding for me. Some of course are available on line from the original publication, but definitely/easily/wonderfully worth the price. My favorites:
The Siege at Whale Cay by Meghan Mayhey Bergman
Moving on by Diane Cook
Bride by Julia Elliott
The Fugue by Arna Bontemps Hemenway
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson
Sh'khol by Colum McCann
Madame Lazarus by Maile Meloy
North by Aria Beth Sloss
Unsafe at Any Speed by Laura Lee Smith
and the final killer story which I would have accused Mr Boyle of ending with on purpose despite the fact they are alphabetical by author:
Mr. Voice by Jess Walter
Mr. Voice and Sh'khol are my top two picks here.
Wonderful, wonderful stories!
The Siege at Whale Cay by Meghan Mayhey Bergman
Moving on by Diane Cook
Bride by Julia Elliott
The Fugue by Arna Bontemps Hemenway
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson
Sh'khol by Colum McCann
Madame Lazarus by Maile Meloy
North by Aria Beth Sloss
Unsafe at Any Speed by Laura Lee Smith
and the final killer story which I would have accused Mr Boyle of ending with on purpose despite the fact they are alphabetical by author:
Mr. Voice by Jess Walter
Mr. Voice and Sh'khol are my top two picks here.
Wonderful, wonderful stories!
June 7, 2017
Main thing I learned from this anthology is that TC Boyle and I apparently have very different taste. Really liked the following though (especially the Maile Meloy):
"Madame Lazarus" by Maile Meloy (!!)
"Thunderstruck" by Elizabeth McCracken
"The Largesse of the Sea Maiden" by Denis Johnson (beautifully written if underwhelming as a story)
"Happy Endings" by Kevin Canty (will read more Canty)
"You'll Apologize if You Have To" by Ben Fowlkes
"About My Aunt" by Joan Silber
"Mr. Voice" by Jess Walter (maybe actually loved this one? Jury still out)
and
"The Siege at Whale Cay" by Meghan Mayhew Bergman (great setting and characters; should be a movie)
"Madame Lazarus" by Maile Meloy (!!)
"Thunderstruck" by Elizabeth McCracken
"The Largesse of the Sea Maiden" by Denis Johnson (beautifully written if underwhelming as a story)
"Happy Endings" by Kevin Canty (will read more Canty)
"You'll Apologize if You Have To" by Ben Fowlkes
"About My Aunt" by Joan Silber
"Mr. Voice" by Jess Walter (maybe actually loved this one? Jury still out)
and
"The Siege at Whale Cay" by Meghan Mayhew Bergman (great setting and characters; should be a movie)
November 14, 2015
The first tipoff was that series editor Heidi Pitlor devoted her Forward to defending stories without a character the reader might want to be friends with.
Okay, granted, I have loved entire books with unlikeable characters, but I could not even like most of this selection of stories, much less love more than one or two of them. I read The Best American Short Stories each year, but I struggled to finish the twenty stories novelist T.C. Boyles chose. I started a few and then paged ahead to see if the story would end as I expected, and then when it did, I allowed myself to skip ahead to the next story. Some stories seemed cliché, some felt like the author was slumming, some were merely tedious.
In her introduction to BASS 2004, Lorrie Moore suggests that if authors loved their short story characters, they would have given them novels: “a short story [is one] that even its author—not just its reader—has decided to spend an abbreviated amount of time with its inhabitants (the characters a writer commits a lot of time to end up in novels” (xvi). To me, that seems like a problem for readers and a partial explanation for why many people claim they do not like short stories if even the authors do not much care about their characters who live in them.
By contrast, some authors—consider Morrison for one—seem to love nearly all their characters, even the terrible ones, without requiring me to share their affection. I can, as a result, both hate Cholly Breedlove, and recognize that he has lived a sad and sorry life. I can understand him without forgiving him.
Pitlor cites Claire Messud, who wondered a couple of years ago if anyone wanted to be friends with the likes “Humbert Humbert?” (x). We do not have to like every character or even the protagonist to find value in a book or story. Her point is taken, but this reflection on unappealing characters suggests the series editor may have struggled, as I did, with what was chosen for this collection. Some stories did capture my imagination, and the last story made me grateful that I stuck it out and read the entire collection (it was wonderful, that last story), but I was rarely shocked or surprised or touched, and sometimes—oh my, sometimes—I simply did not care.
Okay, granted, I have loved entire books with unlikeable characters, but I could not even like most of this selection of stories, much less love more than one or two of them. I read The Best American Short Stories each year, but I struggled to finish the twenty stories novelist T.C. Boyles chose. I started a few and then paged ahead to see if the story would end as I expected, and then when it did, I allowed myself to skip ahead to the next story. Some stories seemed cliché, some felt like the author was slumming, some were merely tedious.
In her introduction to BASS 2004, Lorrie Moore suggests that if authors loved their short story characters, they would have given them novels: “a short story [is one] that even its author—not just its reader—has decided to spend an abbreviated amount of time with its inhabitants (the characters a writer commits a lot of time to end up in novels” (xvi). To me, that seems like a problem for readers and a partial explanation for why many people claim they do not like short stories if even the authors do not much care about their characters who live in them.
By contrast, some authors—consider Morrison for one—seem to love nearly all their characters, even the terrible ones, without requiring me to share their affection. I can, as a result, both hate Cholly Breedlove, and recognize that he has lived a sad and sorry life. I can understand him without forgiving him.
Pitlor cites Claire Messud, who wondered a couple of years ago if anyone wanted to be friends with the likes “Humbert Humbert?” (x). We do not have to like every character or even the protagonist to find value in a book or story. Her point is taken, but this reflection on unappealing characters suggests the series editor may have struggled, as I did, with what was chosen for this collection. Some stories did capture my imagination, and the last story made me grateful that I stuck it out and read the entire collection (it was wonderful, that last story), but I was rarely shocked or surprised or touched, and sometimes—oh my, sometimes—I simply did not care.
April 14, 2017
Great to discover some new writers! The best one of the collection was for me the very moving story Sh'koll of Colum McCann, so I will definitely have a go at one of his novels. Then the story of Megan Mayhem Bergman made me so curious I immediately read her wonderful collection Birds of a Lesser Paradise. Jess Walter was a discovery too, as was Louise Erdrich. There were a few similar stories about middle aged men on the loose that were not bad but rather predictable. Remarkable(?) observation: when I liked the author's style I usually liked the story as well and vice versa.
September 23, 2015
I had already read some of the short stories in this collection while others were new to me. I was very disappointed with the selection of stories and found myself wondering how they made it into this book. Perhaps the primary issue is that my taste runs very differently than T.C. Boyle, this year's editor. I'm a fan of his early work but have not been thrilled with his more recent writings. Overall, this year's selection is very disappointing to me.
August 6, 2019
I read and wrote notes here on 2015's Best American Stories rather lazily a few months ago; having just reread many of the stories, the astonishing strength of this collection hit me even harder than the first time round. Even thumbing through the titles brought a wash of strong emotion: the parental heartbreak of Colum McCann's 'Sh-khol' and Elizabeth McCracken's 'Thunderstruck', the hilarious, dazzling mid-life crisis in Laura Lee Smith's "Unsafe at Any Speed", the intense loneliness and aching hope of Maile Meloy's 'Madame Lazarus', the sentimental yet pitch-perfect beauty of Jess Walter's 'Mr. Voice'; Diane Cook's terrifying sci-fi dip into a Handmaid's Tale rendition of a women's shelter in 'Moving on', Victor Lodato's hard walk through a Florida wasteland of personal failure in "Jack, July", the bemused sorrow of an ad man's end of the road in Denis Johnson's 'The Largesse of the Sea Maiden' and the thrill of the vivid island and inhabitants of Megan Mayhew Bergman's 'The Siege at Whale Cay'. I could add a fan's note of appreciation to almost every story out of the 20 so perfectly culled by TC Boyle. Happily, the 100th volume in this series is easily the best in many years. Couldn't Heidi Pitlor entice TC Boyle to take up residence?
May 10, 2017
I picked this volume up because of its editor, one of my favorite contemporary authors, and I wasn't disappointed. Each story is an off-kilter narrative that leaves the reader feeling vaguely creeped out and delightfully spooked. There's a "Handmaid's Tale"-like story of a woman who tries to escape the women's center she's been confined to; and other stories that seem ordinary until you get into them. A terrific collection.
February 4, 2016
This is only the second volume of Best American Short Stories I've read from cover to cover, although I own several and have dipped into them. I enjoyed this book much better than the 2014 collection.
I also really appreciate the notes in the back where the authors talk about how their story came together.
I also really appreciate the notes in the back where the authors talk about how their story came together.
December 3, 2018
Man, I love me a short story. I picked this book up solely for Elizabeth McCracken's "Thunderstruck," but was excited about the other authors featured in this collection, including Jess Walter, Denis Johnson, Louise Erdrich, and Colum McCann. Good stuff in here.
September 26, 2016
Excellent offering by this annual series. I enjoyed every story except one sci-fi type of tale which did not resonate with me. You really can't complain when you enjoy 19 out of 20!
June 1, 2023
I may have detected a slight bias in Mr. Boyle's selection for this volume, since the twenty authors include a McCann, a McCracken, a McGuane, and a Meloy. Twice the Gaelic surnames as the most recent edition.
On the other hand, any anthology that includes Diane Cook, Louise Erdrich, Denis Johnson, and Jess Walter is clearly going to be worth checking out. But let me start with a bit of a grouch. The series editor, Heidi Pitlor, chose to focus her foreword on "unlikeable" characters, and she states that many of the most memorable the series had published over the years would fall into that category. Fine, and fair. But then she goes on an elitest tear, and I most definitely call bullshit. Writing and reading have a multitude of purposes, but by selecting famous writers who concentrate on the tragic she claims to be showing us that happy endings and likeable characters are tawdry, infantile, and deplorable. Noble literature can't have that stuff. She quotes Donald Antrim (adore his Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World, I must say) and Margaret Atwood in support, and both those authors have clear elitism issues. She uses Antrim (who should know better) to attack writers of likeable characters as "looking for love" and being "commonplace." I will not write what I think about that.
Then T. C. Boyle uses a clever idea (looking back at the selections of the same series from 100 years ago) to cast aspersions on pretty much any writer who makes money. He starts with an anecdote about Stanley Elkin, who declined to write many short stories because there was no money in it. Cynical, Boyle claims, as though he hadn't been courting the dollar his whole career. Boyle is hitting that elitist note that deplores money because money indicates readership. Great writers are read only by the few, goes the trope, so making money means selling out.
I have always assumed that this means that the best writers of all are read by nobody. Probably not even themselves.
And yes, I know that there is some truth to the idea that many of the best practitioners don't have the widest audience; but there's only some truth to it. Note that in many cases they stay in print when the more widely-read do not. Hmmm. Boyle and Pitlor have not covered themselves with glory here.
The anthology, though, is its usual first-rate, despite three appearances of the word grimace [for those who keep count]. Diane Cook's piece, like so many of hers, is dystopian spec-fic. In this case society has decided to house the unmarried, including widows and widowers, until they can correct that status. My impression is that Cook does not really embrace this strategy.
Louise Erdrich's "The Big Cat" earned a "Ha!" in the table of contents. Snoring is the central motif, but in a way I've never seen (or heard) before.
"You'll Apologize If You Have To" - by Ben Fowlkes - is a truncated story about an aging MMA fighter who misbehaves in his neighborhood. It's an excellent POV study, with the fighter having recently lost a big fight, and having some trouble adjusting to this fact. When I say "truncated" I mean that the story takes us up to the point where the character is going to make an important change, but then stops, rather than dramatize that scene. One of my complaints about contemporary literary fiction is that a majority, it seems, of the authors have taken the role of irresponsible gods. They create a world, then walk out before the consequences roll in, and before they -- as author -- would have to make specific choices. It can be irritating to read a succession of them in one book or magazine, and it was a bit irritating in this volume, but here I think it worked. We know what the main character is choosing to do, and so nothing unexpected would happen in the next scene. This was my favorite piece of the anthology.
Other interesting pieces were Joan Silber's "About My Aunt" which is, in effect, a double character sketch. The extra touch is that it's the unreliable character who is describing the title character, and the situation is terminally bleak. Very strong, and would be a good study in characterization of more than one person at once, if one were looking to study that. Laura Lee Smith's "Unsafe at Any Speed" has an unexpected storyline, with characters making impulsive, but long-building, moves, and so behaving "out of character" as far as the reader knows. I was surprised by this interesting tale. I won't go into the long explanation, but this is a variation on what I have come to call a Christmas-with-the-Plantagenets story arc.
Jess Walters's "Mr. Voice" is another interesting POV exercise, that had a surprising story arc. Walters explains in the author note that it began with the first line -- "Mother was a stunner." -- and it seems to be a character study of the mother by the daughter who can never compete, and who is mercilessly challenged by the mother's worldview. Now, there is a standard tragic arc to the tale of an absent father and an outsized-character mother and her moral compromises, and how they destroy the daughter. What I particularly liked about this tale (which is my second-favorite, now that I'm writing about it) is that it simply doesn't go there. Bravo, Jess. I like what you did there.
To provide a data set for 2014, here are the numbers (from 20 stories)
1st person: 7
2nd person: 1
3rd person: 12
present tense: 5 (with two of them sorta sliding into present near the end, so that one realizes it is the master tense, despite passages in past)
On the other hand, any anthology that includes Diane Cook, Louise Erdrich, Denis Johnson, and Jess Walter is clearly going to be worth checking out. But let me start with a bit of a grouch. The series editor, Heidi Pitlor, chose to focus her foreword on "unlikeable" characters, and she states that many of the most memorable the series had published over the years would fall into that category. Fine, and fair. But then she goes on an elitest tear, and I most definitely call bullshit. Writing and reading have a multitude of purposes, but by selecting famous writers who concentrate on the tragic she claims to be showing us that happy endings and likeable characters are tawdry, infantile, and deplorable. Noble literature can't have that stuff. She quotes Donald Antrim (adore his Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World, I must say) and Margaret Atwood in support, and both those authors have clear elitism issues. She uses Antrim (who should know better) to attack writers of likeable characters as "looking for love" and being "commonplace." I will not write what I think about that.
Then T. C. Boyle uses a clever idea (looking back at the selections of the same series from 100 years ago) to cast aspersions on pretty much any writer who makes money. He starts with an anecdote about Stanley Elkin, who declined to write many short stories because there was no money in it. Cynical, Boyle claims, as though he hadn't been courting the dollar his whole career. Boyle is hitting that elitist note that deplores money because money indicates readership. Great writers are read only by the few, goes the trope, so making money means selling out.
I have always assumed that this means that the best writers of all are read by nobody. Probably not even themselves.
And yes, I know that there is some truth to the idea that many of the best practitioners don't have the widest audience; but there's only some truth to it. Note that in many cases they stay in print when the more widely-read do not. Hmmm. Boyle and Pitlor have not covered themselves with glory here.
The anthology, though, is its usual first-rate, despite three appearances of the word grimace [for those who keep count]. Diane Cook's piece, like so many of hers, is dystopian spec-fic. In this case society has decided to house the unmarried, including widows and widowers, until they can correct that status. My impression is that Cook does not really embrace this strategy.
Louise Erdrich's "The Big Cat" earned a "Ha!" in the table of contents. Snoring is the central motif, but in a way I've never seen (or heard) before.
"You'll Apologize If You Have To" - by Ben Fowlkes - is a truncated story about an aging MMA fighter who misbehaves in his neighborhood. It's an excellent POV study, with the fighter having recently lost a big fight, and having some trouble adjusting to this fact. When I say "truncated" I mean that the story takes us up to the point where the character is going to make an important change, but then stops, rather than dramatize that scene. One of my complaints about contemporary literary fiction is that a majority, it seems, of the authors have taken the role of irresponsible gods. They create a world, then walk out before the consequences roll in, and before they -- as author -- would have to make specific choices. It can be irritating to read a succession of them in one book or magazine, and it was a bit irritating in this volume, but here I think it worked. We know what the main character is choosing to do, and so nothing unexpected would happen in the next scene. This was my favorite piece of the anthology.
Other interesting pieces were Joan Silber's "About My Aunt" which is, in effect, a double character sketch. The extra touch is that it's the unreliable character who is describing the title character, and the situation is terminally bleak. Very strong, and would be a good study in characterization of more than one person at once, if one were looking to study that. Laura Lee Smith's "Unsafe at Any Speed" has an unexpected storyline, with characters making impulsive, but long-building, moves, and so behaving "out of character" as far as the reader knows. I was surprised by this interesting tale. I won't go into the long explanation, but this is a variation on what I have come to call a Christmas-with-the-Plantagenets story arc.
Jess Walters's "Mr. Voice" is another interesting POV exercise, that had a surprising story arc. Walters explains in the author note that it began with the first line -- "Mother was a stunner." -- and it seems to be a character study of the mother by the daughter who can never compete, and who is mercilessly challenged by the mother's worldview. Now, there is a standard tragic arc to the tale of an absent father and an outsized-character mother and her moral compromises, and how they destroy the daughter. What I particularly liked about this tale (which is my second-favorite, now that I'm writing about it) is that it simply doesn't go there. Bravo, Jess. I like what you did there.
To provide a data set for 2014, here are the numbers (from 20 stories)
1st person: 7
2nd person: 1
3rd person: 12
present tense: 5 (with two of them sorta sliding into present near the end, so that one realizes it is the master tense, despite passages in past)
June 4, 2019
As usual, variety and talent reflected in this Best American Short Stories collection.
March 17, 2017
"The Siege at Whale Cay" by Megan Mayhew Bergman -- Wow! Beautiful descriptions. The despondency in the characters reminded me of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I like the ambiguity at the end too.
"Fingerprints" by Justin Bigos -- This story jumped around at such a frenetic pace that it was difficult to really identify who the character were. A son/daughter and a riches to rags alcoholic father.
"Happy Endings" by Kevin Canty -- A man finds contentment after tragedy through sexy massages. Thought he would form an unhealthy relationship with Tracy, but instead seems to build an unhealthy habit as a john.
"Moving On" by Diane Cook -- Love and loss in the dystopia! Orwell would approve.
"Bride" by Julia Elliott -- Weird story that went a hundred places and nowhere all at once. Where should a reader focus: budding relationship? sickness ravaging the monastery? delusional visions of Christ at the moment of death?
"The Big Cat" by Louise Erdrich -- Well, as Heidi Pitlor says, this guy is not very likeable, but I liked how he related a story. It was circular, but he came to be put in his place, psychologically at least.
"You'll Apologize If You Have To" by Ben Fowlkes -- An interesting anecdote in the life of a fighter on a downward slope. The beginning knockout scene was captiviating and the rest of the story followed with levity and a lightness of tone.
"The Fugue" by Arna Bontemps Hemenway -- What a weird story . . . full of sensate imagery, yet utterly boring in the middle, with a traumatic ending that felt unearned.
"The Largesse of the Sea Maiden" by Denis Johnson -- Maybe I just don't get it. There were a few poignant bits, but what holds this together as a complete narrative? What was this story, other than an old man reflecting on moments of his life? Boyle, as editor, seems to favor these sorts of anecdotal collection stories.
"M & L" by Sarah Kokernot -- Painful, tender, and honest. This story is about dealing with relationship trauma and coming to terms with the skeletons in one's closet. The future seems dim for M & L, like their dark past, but this one moment is bright.
"Jack, July" by Victor Lodato -- Drugs will mess you up . . . I like how the author used some time confusion in this story. There is no narrator as unreliable as a drug-addled one.
"Sh'khol" by Colum McCann -- The sorrow and sadness of this story seems interrupted by the "happy ending." It's not quite a feel good tale, but I guess it fits the label "feel better."
"Thunderstruck" by Elizabeth McCracken -- Compare and contrast the trauma and reactions experienced in this story to that of the character in "Sh'khol." This story seemed a bit uneven at first, but I suppose as readers we aren't supposed to know why the girl does what she does . . . the differing reactions of her parents are interesting, and I wonder who is more damagaed by their hopes and dreams being dashed: the mother or the father? The inclusion of Helen's thoughts at the end seemed unnecessary, and only put in place to make the story less "crushing."
"Motherlode" by Thomas McGuane -- This was such a boring story until the last page. Dimwitted cowman caught up with inept criminals.
"Madame Lazarus" by Maile Meloy -- This gets emotional at the end, and even seems earned with the death of the dog. But the beginning was abrupt and the middle seemed contrived. Is that the right word? The perspective was a bit hard to nail down at first, old gay French man and the dog his lover got him.
"Kavitah and Mustafa" by Shobha Rao -- An Indian woman and a Pakistani boy escape a train robbery. Some tense moments. So, what happens next for them?
"About My Aunt" by Joan Silber -- What a charmed life the aunt lived. Very interesting to get the two different perspectives of what one can get out of life at the end of the story.
"North" by Aria Beth Sloss -- This one reminds me a bit of the Bradbury story with the spaceman who leaves his family and never returns. Same concept, but deeper emotional impact here. Excellent weight of gravity at the end of the story. Quite a woman the mother was, an unsung hero contrasted with the father. I don't think he was selfish, but driven, and she knew there was little she could do to make him stay.
"Unsafe at Any Speed" by Laura Lee Smith -- I liked this midlife crisis adventure story. It turned out a hell of a lot better in the end for Theo than it could have, but he didn't learn any valuable lesson even though he had a cathartic experience.
"Mr. Voice" by Jess Walter -- "with my father." Wow, this is a story that seemed to get a little preachy near the end, but I liked the message it presented nonetheless. Family are the people who love and support you . . . family is not biology and your biology is not a curse.
"Fingerprints" by Justin Bigos -- This story jumped around at such a frenetic pace that it was difficult to really identify who the character were. A son/daughter and a riches to rags alcoholic father.
"Happy Endings" by Kevin Canty -- A man finds contentment after tragedy through sexy massages. Thought he would form an unhealthy relationship with Tracy, but instead seems to build an unhealthy habit as a john.
"Moving On" by Diane Cook -- Love and loss in the dystopia! Orwell would approve.
"Bride" by Julia Elliott -- Weird story that went a hundred places and nowhere all at once. Where should a reader focus: budding relationship? sickness ravaging the monastery? delusional visions of Christ at the moment of death?
"The Big Cat" by Louise Erdrich -- Well, as Heidi Pitlor says, this guy is not very likeable, but I liked how he related a story. It was circular, but he came to be put in his place, psychologically at least.
"You'll Apologize If You Have To" by Ben Fowlkes -- An interesting anecdote in the life of a fighter on a downward slope. The beginning knockout scene was captiviating and the rest of the story followed with levity and a lightness of tone.
"The Fugue" by Arna Bontemps Hemenway -- What a weird story . . . full of sensate imagery, yet utterly boring in the middle, with a traumatic ending that felt unearned.
"The Largesse of the Sea Maiden" by Denis Johnson -- Maybe I just don't get it. There were a few poignant bits, but what holds this together as a complete narrative? What was this story, other than an old man reflecting on moments of his life? Boyle, as editor, seems to favor these sorts of anecdotal collection stories.
"M & L" by Sarah Kokernot -- Painful, tender, and honest. This story is about dealing with relationship trauma and coming to terms with the skeletons in one's closet. The future seems dim for M & L, like their dark past, but this one moment is bright.
"Jack, July" by Victor Lodato -- Drugs will mess you up . . . I like how the author used some time confusion in this story. There is no narrator as unreliable as a drug-addled one.
"Sh'khol" by Colum McCann -- The sorrow and sadness of this story seems interrupted by the "happy ending." It's not quite a feel good tale, but I guess it fits the label "feel better."
"Thunderstruck" by Elizabeth McCracken -- Compare and contrast the trauma and reactions experienced in this story to that of the character in "Sh'khol." This story seemed a bit uneven at first, but I suppose as readers we aren't supposed to know why the girl does what she does . . . the differing reactions of her parents are interesting, and I wonder who is more damagaed by their hopes and dreams being dashed: the mother or the father? The inclusion of Helen's thoughts at the end seemed unnecessary, and only put in place to make the story less "crushing."
"Motherlode" by Thomas McGuane -- This was such a boring story until the last page. Dimwitted cowman caught up with inept criminals.
"Madame Lazarus" by Maile Meloy -- This gets emotional at the end, and even seems earned with the death of the dog. But the beginning was abrupt and the middle seemed contrived. Is that the right word? The perspective was a bit hard to nail down at first, old gay French man and the dog his lover got him.
"Kavitah and Mustafa" by Shobha Rao -- An Indian woman and a Pakistani boy escape a train robbery. Some tense moments. So, what happens next for them?
"About My Aunt" by Joan Silber -- What a charmed life the aunt lived. Very interesting to get the two different perspectives of what one can get out of life at the end of the story.
"North" by Aria Beth Sloss -- This one reminds me a bit of the Bradbury story with the spaceman who leaves his family and never returns. Same concept, but deeper emotional impact here. Excellent weight of gravity at the end of the story. Quite a woman the mother was, an unsung hero contrasted with the father. I don't think he was selfish, but driven, and she knew there was little she could do to make him stay.
"Unsafe at Any Speed" by Laura Lee Smith -- I liked this midlife crisis adventure story. It turned out a hell of a lot better in the end for Theo than it could have, but he didn't learn any valuable lesson even though he had a cathartic experience.
"Mr. Voice" by Jess Walter -- "with my father." Wow, this is a story that seemed to get a little preachy near the end, but I liked the message it presented nonetheless. Family are the people who love and support you . . . family is not biology and your biology is not a curse.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 14, 2016
100 years of this anthology! Not as much diversity this year, it seems, but we got an interesting array from the middle of the country. Here are the notes I took while reading:
Pitlor mentions GoodReads, but in the context of pointing out how many readers demand (unfortunately) "likable" characters. Wish she found more reviews like mine. TC Boyle seems refreshingly optimistic about the present--or maybe just his skill as a curator. He claims the stories here have more depth than a couple he picked out of the premiere 1915 edition of this anthology. Promising start!
My favorite stories:
"The Siege at Whale City," Megan Mayhew Bergman (The Kenyon Review) Period piece, based on reality, about a powerful, gay woman and her fiefdom in the Bahamas. POV of young woman in her orbit says a lot about the power plays and jealousies at work in these relationships.
"Happy Endings," Kevin Canty (New Ohio Review) I like how it starts with the explanation of how you behave for others, which sets up the conundrum of how to behave when no one is watching. Without societal norms, it's easy to question how to connect/get what you want.
"Bride," Julia Elliot (Conjunctions) The physical descriptions of rotting flesh and gluttonous meals are discomfortingly good. I know the author was writing about medieval Mystics, but I read it more as lurid hallucinations due to physical and emotional abuse.
"You'll Apologize If You Have To," Ben Fowlkes (Crazyhorse) He does a good job using dialogue cadences to build up character. Th scenes with the protagonist alone, wallowing in self-pity, also set the stage and urged me to consider the inner lives of pro-wrestlers.
"Sh'khol," Colum McCann (Zoetrope: All-Story) The narrative is sweeping, encompassing a lot of themes. I'm a sucker for stories that consider dwindling Jewish communities, and I'm also tickled that McCann wrote something around a complicated Hebrew word.
"Thunderstruck," Elizabeth McCracken (StoryQuarterly) For McCracken's stories I think this is still a lesser one for me, but she may be my favorite writer here. Could be bias because I read her full book of short fiction. But the characters, situation, background are real and complex and draw me in the most.
"Kavitha and Mustafa," Shoba Rao (Nimrod) A little more of an action plot, but finally, a story in a non-western setting. She does a good job giving depth and history to her main couple, too. And I love her final line in her contributor's note--“Violence, after all, is not difficult. Humanizing that violence is what is difficult.”--so true.
A couple of honorable mentions:
"About My Aunt," Joan Silber: How could I not include this one? Probably projecting some of what I want for me and Grace, though with less weather and crime-related drama. Still, these two women are independent and self-assured in different ways, and have a strong, distinct bond.
"Unsafe at Any Speed," Laura Lee Smith and "Mr. Voice," Jess Walter: Both of these authors did a great job taking on the voice of a narrator of a different gender--a middle-aged man and a teenager-to-middle-aged woman, respectively. The stories were a little stereotypical--midlife crisis and a woman reflecting being abandoned by her free-spirited mother.
I wrote in my review of the 2011 PEN/O'Henry Prize collection that I don't think dystopia always works in short stories. This came to pass here, as well, with "Moving On" by Diane Cook. She was trying to find a metaphorical way to talk about the process of grief, but this whole placement team/shelter thing made the emotional journey feel artificial.
Pitlor mentions GoodReads, but in the context of pointing out how many readers demand (unfortunately) "likable" characters. Wish she found more reviews like mine. TC Boyle seems refreshingly optimistic about the present--or maybe just his skill as a curator. He claims the stories here have more depth than a couple he picked out of the premiere 1915 edition of this anthology. Promising start!
My favorite stories:
"The Siege at Whale City," Megan Mayhew Bergman (The Kenyon Review) Period piece, based on reality, about a powerful, gay woman and her fiefdom in the Bahamas. POV of young woman in her orbit says a lot about the power plays and jealousies at work in these relationships.
"Happy Endings," Kevin Canty (New Ohio Review) I like how it starts with the explanation of how you behave for others, which sets up the conundrum of how to behave when no one is watching. Without societal norms, it's easy to question how to connect/get what you want.
"Bride," Julia Elliot (Conjunctions) The physical descriptions of rotting flesh and gluttonous meals are discomfortingly good. I know the author was writing about medieval Mystics, but I read it more as lurid hallucinations due to physical and emotional abuse.
"You'll Apologize If You Have To," Ben Fowlkes (Crazyhorse) He does a good job using dialogue cadences to build up character. Th scenes with the protagonist alone, wallowing in self-pity, also set the stage and urged me to consider the inner lives of pro-wrestlers.
"Sh'khol," Colum McCann (Zoetrope: All-Story) The narrative is sweeping, encompassing a lot of themes. I'm a sucker for stories that consider dwindling Jewish communities, and I'm also tickled that McCann wrote something around a complicated Hebrew word.
"Thunderstruck," Elizabeth McCracken (StoryQuarterly) For McCracken's stories I think this is still a lesser one for me, but she may be my favorite writer here. Could be bias because I read her full book of short fiction. But the characters, situation, background are real and complex and draw me in the most.
"Kavitha and Mustafa," Shoba Rao (Nimrod) A little more of an action plot, but finally, a story in a non-western setting. She does a good job giving depth and history to her main couple, too. And I love her final line in her contributor's note--“Violence, after all, is not difficult. Humanizing that violence is what is difficult.”--so true.
A couple of honorable mentions:
"About My Aunt," Joan Silber: How could I not include this one? Probably projecting some of what I want for me and Grace, though with less weather and crime-related drama. Still, these two women are independent and self-assured in different ways, and have a strong, distinct bond.
"Unsafe at Any Speed," Laura Lee Smith and "Mr. Voice," Jess Walter: Both of these authors did a great job taking on the voice of a narrator of a different gender--a middle-aged man and a teenager-to-middle-aged woman, respectively. The stories were a little stereotypical--midlife crisis and a woman reflecting being abandoned by her free-spirited mother.
I wrote in my review of the 2011 PEN/O'Henry Prize collection that I don't think dystopia always works in short stories. This came to pass here, as well, with "Moving On" by Diane Cook. She was trying to find a metaphorical way to talk about the process of grief, but this whole placement team/shelter thing made the emotional journey feel artificial.
October 18, 2020
The most interesting aspects of this collection were the two introductions. Heidi Pitlor complains that readers on Goodreads often judge a book by its characters than by the gender of its author. “Hopefully VIDA, the organization that studies women in the literary arts, and other similar groups will research this question.”
She spends a couple of pages condescendingly talking down to her readers, explaining that characters in fiction are fictional. But of course that sidesteps the issue entirely; when she writes
She appears to be saying the opposite; she’s asking us to reduce the diversity of readers. Some people read to enjoy the characters, and it bothers her that they get to write reviews on social media, too.
If the series has been published every year since the 1916 edition (which collected stories from 1915), this is the one hundredth volume of the Best American Short Stories. Guest Editor T.C. Boyle mentions that, and ridicules some of the selections from the first volume, and, in general, founding editor O’Brien’s failure to choose lasting works in 1916. But Boyle elides one of the problems that he shares with O’Brien: both he and O’Brien were looking for meaningful works rather than enjoyable works.
Commenting on O’Brien’s complaint that there are too many hacks in the short story market, and too many great writers who sell out to the movie industry, Boyle laments, momentarily, that no one makes a living writing short stories anymore. He then turns that into a celebration that the short story has become so uncommercial that there are no hacks remaining in the field. Even after ironically noting that some of O’Brien’s best went on to sell out after their recognition in that early volume.
He was able to make those remarks because the sellouts became the memorable writers. They were Fanny Hurst and Ben Hecht, “the only ones I recognized, both of whom, traitorously, would go on to careers in film”.
This was a less enjoyable collection for me; that may be simply because I share fewer cultural flashpoints with the writers. In Anna Bontemps Hemenway’s “The Fugue”, for example, the character looks back on their second grade teacher, and the regular nap times in her classroom. That second-graders have nap times now was the most interesting part of the story.
The highlight of this collection for me was the final entry, Jess Walter’s “Mr. Voice”, about a girl growing up in the shadow of her very beautiful mother, and about finding good friends in a new family. It was, in fact, the kind of story that Pitlor complained readers like: the main characters were all likable, even quietly heroic, even if they made the occasional (or more than occasional) poor choice.
Other highlights include Justin Bigos’s “Fingerprints” (a collection of loosely-weaved vignettes, spiraling toward the end), Victor Lodato’s “Jack, July” (whose drug-addict protagonist is not at all likable, is a sinister, if addled, harasser), Elizabeth McCracken’s “Thunderstruck” (a man’s daughter is injured while on vacation in France, goes into a coma, and cannot be moved, so he has to move to be with her), and Aria Beth Sloss’s “North” (a woman looking for a wild man, finds him, an explorer obsessed with reaching the North Pole).
She spends a couple of pages condescendingly talking down to her readers, explaining that characters in fiction are fictional. But of course that sidesteps the issue entirely; when she writes
Let us open up at least a little to those we might not like—in their presence, we might experience something new. To me, facing those we might not want to face is crucial in a diverse world.
She appears to be saying the opposite; she’s asking us to reduce the diversity of readers. Some people read to enjoy the characters, and it bothers her that they get to write reviews on social media, too.
If the series has been published every year since the 1916 edition (which collected stories from 1915), this is the one hundredth volume of the Best American Short Stories. Guest Editor T.C. Boyle mentions that, and ridicules some of the selections from the first volume, and, in general, founding editor O’Brien’s failure to choose lasting works in 1916. But Boyle elides one of the problems that he shares with O’Brien: both he and O’Brien were looking for meaningful works rather than enjoyable works.
Commenting on O’Brien’s complaint that there are too many hacks in the short story market, and too many great writers who sell out to the movie industry, Boyle laments, momentarily, that no one makes a living writing short stories anymore. He then turns that into a celebration that the short story has become so uncommercial that there are no hacks remaining in the field. Even after ironically noting that some of O’Brien’s best went on to sell out after their recognition in that early volume.
He was able to make those remarks because the sellouts became the memorable writers. They were Fanny Hurst and Ben Hecht, “the only ones I recognized, both of whom, traitorously, would go on to careers in film”.
This was a less enjoyable collection for me; that may be simply because I share fewer cultural flashpoints with the writers. In Anna Bontemps Hemenway’s “The Fugue”, for example, the character looks back on their second grade teacher, and the regular nap times in her classroom. That second-graders have nap times now was the most interesting part of the story.
The highlight of this collection for me was the final entry, Jess Walter’s “Mr. Voice”, about a girl growing up in the shadow of her very beautiful mother, and about finding good friends in a new family. It was, in fact, the kind of story that Pitlor complained readers like: the main characters were all likable, even quietly heroic, even if they made the occasional (or more than occasional) poor choice.
Other highlights include Justin Bigos’s “Fingerprints” (a collection of loosely-weaved vignettes, spiraling toward the end), Victor Lodato’s “Jack, July” (whose drug-addict protagonist is not at all likable, is a sinister, if addled, harasser), Elizabeth McCracken’s “Thunderstruck” (a man’s daughter is injured while on vacation in France, goes into a coma, and cannot be moved, so he has to move to be with her), and Aria Beth Sloss’s “North” (a woman looking for a wild man, finds him, an explorer obsessed with reaching the North Pole).
December 21, 2019
I love short stories and adore the Best American series and these truly did not disappoint. I loved so many of them but some of my absolute favorites were ‘Moving On,’ ‘ Jack, July,’ ‘Kavitha and Mustafa,’ ‘About My Aunt,” and ‘Mr. Voice.’
Read
December 20, 20153 stars. The trouble with compilations like this is that you don't get the full experience of a short story collection. The voices are all so different, and while it's nice to see what someone thinks of as the year's best, it's a bit disjointed and the flow is off. I suppose it's like the difference between listening to an entire album versus making a mixed cd of songs. Both have their merits, but I don't recommend starting with a Best collection if you're trying to get good at reading short stories. -Sarah
December 14, 2022
Note: This rating reflects the one story I read; Shobha Rao's Kavitha and Mustafa. Mini RTC
July 30, 2016
As with most collections such as this, one finds a wide variety of stories of different value and merit.
In " The Siege at Whale Cay " we come across an original story line. Georgie is the girlfriend of Joe. Joe runs this small Caribbean island as a retreat for women like her and Georgie. Others are there too but this its primary purpose. It is World War Two and Georgie is infatuated, jealous, and angry at Joe's various attentions and in attentions. Things get complicated when Marlena Dietrich comes to visit and Georgie's jealousy knows no bounds
In Justin Bigos's Fingerprints there is a good story lurking. Told however in a series of vignettes about experiences with his Father and stepfather it struggles to come together cohesively.
Kevin Canty offers up " Happy Endings " about a 59 year old man who has always tried to do the right thing. With his well drilling business drying up, his wife having died young, and his children with their own lives he, on a whim, visits a massage parlor and both enjoys a happy ending and contemplates one.
Diane Cook offers " Moving On " which focuses on a society where women must be paired with a man. Well not just women, men for the most part must be too. When this woman's husband dies she is taken to a home to restart her life and wait to be claimed by a new man. She will be expected to lose her memories of the past and begging again, all but reprogrammed.
Julia Elliot's " Bride " tells of Wilda a middle aged nun who has an obsession with Jesus. Which maybe Nuns should have but hers is extreme, she whips herself often to make herself clean for Jesus arrival. She also, however, resents the older nuns who look down on her. When a plague of sorts moves through the convent her and a young apprentice nun raid the stores of the dead Mother Superior. Greed would seem to have been a vice of the late Mother. After feasting on sugary treats, wine, and bad thoughts about her fellow nun she whips herself into a state that brings the Lord himself into her presence.
The Big Cat by Louise Erdich is about a man victimized by snoring. Not his own, his wife Elida. This is a critical factor in their divorce. Meeting each week over the next few years to discuss their growing daughter Valery they develop,a relationship again. He has remarried but while she is richer, younger, and certainly does not snore he misses his first wife. The inevitable happens and now he is happily back on the couch, sleeping alone, listening to the chainsaw in the master bedroom.
An interesting story is Ben Fowlkes " You'll apologize if you have to ". We meet a fighter who is just about at the end of his road. He loses a fight, his manager is only too willing to explain to him how he could have performed differently. He flies home and spends a few days in solitude recovering. His body is sore, his face is bruised. Living in a condo on the beach he goes for a walk on the beach. The beach is all but deserted and he ponders the waves while smoking a joint. He is confronted by a man who is very aggressive, berating him for smoking on the beach, claiming the smoke drifts into his condo and bothers both him and his children. Our fighter tries to walk away but the man gets worse and worse. Eventually he ends up on his ass, not hit but pushed by the fighter who walks away. Later he visits the gym where he realizes his fighting days are over. He visits his ex wife and daughter. Realizing he cannot afford trouble he goes home and makes his way across the dunes to the apartment the man said he lived at. When he rings the bell an old woman appears and he learns that his antagonist was not quite who he said he was.
The Fugue tells the story of Wild Turkey. Wild Turkey is a soldier returned from the Middle East struggling with readjustment. We see both him struggling in the now and revisit his past war experiences including some of the events that have messed him up so bad. A section of the story that talks about a fake village with real Iraqi citizens used to prepare for an assault against a real village with more real Iraqi's has a down the rabbit hole sense of reality that is most effective.
All Denis Johnson is wonderful. " the Largesse of the Sea Maiden " is as well.
M and L is the story of Miriam and Liam, two long time friends. They are both Ina wedding for Beth. At the party a man shows up. Everyone is concerned how Beth will react. It is Caleb, a man who in high school had assaulted her. He had been in prison. She was conflicted cover her feelings for him. Liam is not conflicted. He loves Miriam and always has. They walk out of the reception into the field to try to blot out the pain.
Victor Lodato wrote Jack, July. I had read this before. Simply put one of the better stories to take you into the heart of full blown addiction.
Thomas Mcguane wrote Motherlode. When you have an opportunity to step away from illegal activity sometimes you should take it. Sometimes when you are in your late twenties, living at home still, you go for broke. Sometimes broke wins.
Colum McCann writes " Sch'koll about a divorced woman who has relocated to Galway. Her and her husband had adopted a Russian child. He was severely disabled but she loved him and felt a bond. They communicated in a way that made them both happy. At Christmas this first year to take advantage of the near ocean she buys him a wetsuit. When she wakes up the next morning both the boy and the wetsuit are gone leading to a nightmare we all fear.
In another very strong story Elizabeth McCracken writes " Thunderstruck. " in this story Wes and his wife are raising two girls. One night the oldest 12 year old Helen is retuned to the house late at night by the police. Her parents were not even aware she had snuck out. Responding with an "ice cream " as Wes says they resolve to travel that summer to Paris. Family time will help they convince themselves. And it does. The month of July in their little rented apartment and days spent sightseeing is what a family dreams about. As the clock turns to August and their trip home approaches one night the cell phone rings in the middle of the night. Again the police. Only this time they are French. Their daughter is at hospital and has taken a serious fall. Again they had no idea she had snuck out. This time there appears to be no ice cream to fix it.
Maile Meloy might be incapable of a bad piece of writing. In " Madame Lazarus, a simple story really, we meet an older man divorced from his first wife and now in a relationship with James. James is much younger but they are happy. James is away a lot though so he buys the narrator a puppy. He has never liked dogs,or thought he did anyway, but soon he and Miss Cordelia are fast friends. We learn about his younger experiences and how at this point he is isolated with the dog as his best friend. As happens with dogs however Miss Cordelia gets old and the death of an old dog, for a lonely person, can be shattering.
Joan Silber writes " About My Aunt " which tells of the relationship about a young single mother and her worldly older Aunt and illustrates what we know, you can give advice, good advice, advice the receiver knows is good advice: it does not mean it will be followed.
In " North " a young woman relates the story of a Father she never met. A man with a lust for travel, he had left for one of his adventures not knowing his wife was pregnant and never returned.
Laura Lee Smith writes " Unsafe at Any Speed " which might well be the best story you will read this year about a mid life crisis. Theo Bitner is 48 years old today and his life is dragging him down. His wife talks down to him, looks down at him. His daughter a new college graduate but back home and bereft of a job has no use for him. His Mother has recently moved in and that is no fun. He is a dental supply salesman and his boss is younger, richer, and condescending. On this day however he takes the checkbook when he leaves the house and clutches a picture of a 66 Corvair for sale in a city within his sales district. Little does he know that his forty eight birthday will include a younger woman, appletini's, a hotel visit in the bright of day, stolen money, a police chase and him returning home with a smile on his face and a $9000 Corvair rumbling into the driveway.
Jess Walter ends the collection with a superb story called Mr Voice. Narrated by a woman, forty years after the events we learn about her Mother. They lived scraping by but her Mother was happy, always dating. Her Mother could stop traffic. This is why she was surprised when her Mother was 29 when she was told that her Mom was marrying a fifty year old local celebrity called Mr Voice. Balding, fraying, not thin why was her Mother not waiting any longer for her Father. Her Mother tells her that her looks are like a built up bank account, you have to spend them before you lose them. They move in with Mr Voice , Claude to his friends, and his son Brian. Life is not terrible. It's a nice house, she develops a crush on Brian and she, with her Mothers beauty does well in school. The only down side is the thin walls and Mr Voice's imagination. Eventually her Mother leaves with a singer in a band. Strangely she lives with Mr Voice. One thinks the story might be going in one direction ( based on Mr. Voice's imagination ) but it does not. He raises her through adolescence and adulthood, through good experiences and bad. We find out the story is being told in the time around her seeing Brian at Mr. Voice's funeral. Her Mother died while she was in high school. The guitar player brought her some of her things and she discovered that he was the man she had been waiting to return. Still it did not change her life, Mr Voice was and would remain her Father.
In " The Siege at Whale Cay " we come across an original story line. Georgie is the girlfriend of Joe. Joe runs this small Caribbean island as a retreat for women like her and Georgie. Others are there too but this its primary purpose. It is World War Two and Georgie is infatuated, jealous, and angry at Joe's various attentions and in attentions. Things get complicated when Marlena Dietrich comes to visit and Georgie's jealousy knows no bounds
In Justin Bigos's Fingerprints there is a good story lurking. Told however in a series of vignettes about experiences with his Father and stepfather it struggles to come together cohesively.
Kevin Canty offers up " Happy Endings " about a 59 year old man who has always tried to do the right thing. With his well drilling business drying up, his wife having died young, and his children with their own lives he, on a whim, visits a massage parlor and both enjoys a happy ending and contemplates one.
Diane Cook offers " Moving On " which focuses on a society where women must be paired with a man. Well not just women, men for the most part must be too. When this woman's husband dies she is taken to a home to restart her life and wait to be claimed by a new man. She will be expected to lose her memories of the past and begging again, all but reprogrammed.
Julia Elliot's " Bride " tells of Wilda a middle aged nun who has an obsession with Jesus. Which maybe Nuns should have but hers is extreme, she whips herself often to make herself clean for Jesus arrival. She also, however, resents the older nuns who look down on her. When a plague of sorts moves through the convent her and a young apprentice nun raid the stores of the dead Mother Superior. Greed would seem to have been a vice of the late Mother. After feasting on sugary treats, wine, and bad thoughts about her fellow nun she whips herself into a state that brings the Lord himself into her presence.
The Big Cat by Louise Erdich is about a man victimized by snoring. Not his own, his wife Elida. This is a critical factor in their divorce. Meeting each week over the next few years to discuss their growing daughter Valery they develop,a relationship again. He has remarried but while she is richer, younger, and certainly does not snore he misses his first wife. The inevitable happens and now he is happily back on the couch, sleeping alone, listening to the chainsaw in the master bedroom.
An interesting story is Ben Fowlkes " You'll apologize if you have to ". We meet a fighter who is just about at the end of his road. He loses a fight, his manager is only too willing to explain to him how he could have performed differently. He flies home and spends a few days in solitude recovering. His body is sore, his face is bruised. Living in a condo on the beach he goes for a walk on the beach. The beach is all but deserted and he ponders the waves while smoking a joint. He is confronted by a man who is very aggressive, berating him for smoking on the beach, claiming the smoke drifts into his condo and bothers both him and his children. Our fighter tries to walk away but the man gets worse and worse. Eventually he ends up on his ass, not hit but pushed by the fighter who walks away. Later he visits the gym where he realizes his fighting days are over. He visits his ex wife and daughter. Realizing he cannot afford trouble he goes home and makes his way across the dunes to the apartment the man said he lived at. When he rings the bell an old woman appears and he learns that his antagonist was not quite who he said he was.
The Fugue tells the story of Wild Turkey. Wild Turkey is a soldier returned from the Middle East struggling with readjustment. We see both him struggling in the now and revisit his past war experiences including some of the events that have messed him up so bad. A section of the story that talks about a fake village with real Iraqi citizens used to prepare for an assault against a real village with more real Iraqi's has a down the rabbit hole sense of reality that is most effective.
All Denis Johnson is wonderful. " the Largesse of the Sea Maiden " is as well.
M and L is the story of Miriam and Liam, two long time friends. They are both Ina wedding for Beth. At the party a man shows up. Everyone is concerned how Beth will react. It is Caleb, a man who in high school had assaulted her. He had been in prison. She was conflicted cover her feelings for him. Liam is not conflicted. He loves Miriam and always has. They walk out of the reception into the field to try to blot out the pain.
Victor Lodato wrote Jack, July. I had read this before. Simply put one of the better stories to take you into the heart of full blown addiction.
Thomas Mcguane wrote Motherlode. When you have an opportunity to step away from illegal activity sometimes you should take it. Sometimes when you are in your late twenties, living at home still, you go for broke. Sometimes broke wins.
Colum McCann writes " Sch'koll about a divorced woman who has relocated to Galway. Her and her husband had adopted a Russian child. He was severely disabled but she loved him and felt a bond. They communicated in a way that made them both happy. At Christmas this first year to take advantage of the near ocean she buys him a wetsuit. When she wakes up the next morning both the boy and the wetsuit are gone leading to a nightmare we all fear.
In another very strong story Elizabeth McCracken writes " Thunderstruck. " in this story Wes and his wife are raising two girls. One night the oldest 12 year old Helen is retuned to the house late at night by the police. Her parents were not even aware she had snuck out. Responding with an "ice cream " as Wes says they resolve to travel that summer to Paris. Family time will help they convince themselves. And it does. The month of July in their little rented apartment and days spent sightseeing is what a family dreams about. As the clock turns to August and their trip home approaches one night the cell phone rings in the middle of the night. Again the police. Only this time they are French. Their daughter is at hospital and has taken a serious fall. Again they had no idea she had snuck out. This time there appears to be no ice cream to fix it.
Maile Meloy might be incapable of a bad piece of writing. In " Madame Lazarus, a simple story really, we meet an older man divorced from his first wife and now in a relationship with James. James is much younger but they are happy. James is away a lot though so he buys the narrator a puppy. He has never liked dogs,or thought he did anyway, but soon he and Miss Cordelia are fast friends. We learn about his younger experiences and how at this point he is isolated with the dog as his best friend. As happens with dogs however Miss Cordelia gets old and the death of an old dog, for a lonely person, can be shattering.
Joan Silber writes " About My Aunt " which tells of the relationship about a young single mother and her worldly older Aunt and illustrates what we know, you can give advice, good advice, advice the receiver knows is good advice: it does not mean it will be followed.
In " North " a young woman relates the story of a Father she never met. A man with a lust for travel, he had left for one of his adventures not knowing his wife was pregnant and never returned.
Laura Lee Smith writes " Unsafe at Any Speed " which might well be the best story you will read this year about a mid life crisis. Theo Bitner is 48 years old today and his life is dragging him down. His wife talks down to him, looks down at him. His daughter a new college graduate but back home and bereft of a job has no use for him. His Mother has recently moved in and that is no fun. He is a dental supply salesman and his boss is younger, richer, and condescending. On this day however he takes the checkbook when he leaves the house and clutches a picture of a 66 Corvair for sale in a city within his sales district. Little does he know that his forty eight birthday will include a younger woman, appletini's, a hotel visit in the bright of day, stolen money, a police chase and him returning home with a smile on his face and a $9000 Corvair rumbling into the driveway.
Jess Walter ends the collection with a superb story called Mr Voice. Narrated by a woman, forty years after the events we learn about her Mother. They lived scraping by but her Mother was happy, always dating. Her Mother could stop traffic. This is why she was surprised when her Mother was 29 when she was told that her Mom was marrying a fifty year old local celebrity called Mr Voice. Balding, fraying, not thin why was her Mother not waiting any longer for her Father. Her Mother tells her that her looks are like a built up bank account, you have to spend them before you lose them. They move in with Mr Voice , Claude to his friends, and his son Brian. Life is not terrible. It's a nice house, she develops a crush on Brian and she, with her Mothers beauty does well in school. The only down side is the thin walls and Mr Voice's imagination. Eventually her Mother leaves with a singer in a band. Strangely she lives with Mr Voice. One thinks the story might be going in one direction ( based on Mr. Voice's imagination ) but it does not. He raises her through adolescence and adulthood, through good experiences and bad. We find out the story is being told in the time around her seeing Brian at Mr. Voice's funeral. Her Mother died while she was in high school. The guitar player brought her some of her things and she discovered that he was the man she had been waiting to return. Still it did not change her life, Mr Voice was and would remain her Father.
February 11, 2018
I always enjoy this series of short stories.
September 10, 2018
I like short stories very much and this series is never disappointing.
December 3, 2018
Normally, when I read a short story collection I find some stories I love, some I like, some that are not too bad, and at least one that makes me cringe, but not in this collection. Editor T.C. Boyle has done a wonderful job of selecting highly readable and enjoyable stories that range from good to wildly fantastic. There's not a humdrum story in the lot. Arranged alpha by author and containing at least one writer I recognized immediately (Louise Erdrich), the collection represents a number of literary publications with The New Yorker & Tin House leading the group. I found several stories to be of particular note: the amusing "Happy Endings" by Kevin Canty, originally published in the New Ohio Review; the Atwood-like dystopia, "Moving On" by Diane Cook originally published in Tin House; the metaphorical "Jack, July" by Victor Lodato originally published in The New Yorker; the suspenseful family saga, "Sh'kol" written by Colum McCann and originally published by Zoetrope: All-Story, which reminded me of Doris Lessing's The Tunnel; and the sad family saga, "Thunderstruck" written by Elizabeth McCracken and originally published by Story Quarterly. Finally, the collection ends with a one-two knockout punch of suspense-filled dramas that end in well-devised plot twists: "Unsafe at Any Speed" written by Laura Lee Smith and originally published in New England Review and "Mr. Voice" written by Jess Walter and originally published in Tin House. If Mr. Boyle's 2015 rendition of the collection is representative of this series, then I am excited to read more.
February 9, 2017
This was my first collection of short stories from this publication and I really enjoyed it: some of the stories were not my cup of tea, some of them were excellent. All of the writing was superb. Each story very well-crafted. I'd suggest this (and others from The Best American publication) to anybody.
November 3, 2017
Starts strong, but peters out just before the halfway point save for two knockout, devastating stories, “Thunderstruck" (Elizabeth McCracken) and "Madame Lazarus (Maile Meloy.) The former, concerning a traumatic brain injury, hit close to home; the latter, about a man's love for his dying dog, couldn't be further from home but generated an unexpected gut punch.
Other notable picks: "The Siege at Whale Cay" (Meghan Mayhew Bergman), "Happy Endings" (Kevin Canty), "Moving On" (Diane Cook), "The Black Cat" (Louise Erdrich), and "Kavitha and Mustafa" (Shobha Rao).
Other notable picks: "The Siege at Whale Cay" (Meghan Mayhew Bergman), "Happy Endings" (Kevin Canty), "Moving On" (Diane Cook), "The Black Cat" (Louise Erdrich), and "Kavitha and Mustafa" (Shobha Rao).
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