The Best American Short Stories 1985

by Gail Godwin (Editor), Shannon Ravenel (Editor)

Presents a collection of stories selected from magazines in the United States and Canada

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1985

About the author

Gail Kathleen Godwin is an American novelist and short story writer. She has published one non-fiction work, two collections of short stories, and eleven novels, three of which have been nominated for the National Book Award and five of which have made the New York Times Bestseller List.

Godwin's body of work has garnered many honors, including three National Book Award nominations, a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grants for both fiction and libretto writing, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Five of her novels have been on the New York Times best seller list.
Godwin lives and writes in Woodstock, New York.

Reviews

[Billie Pritchett · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Best American Short Stories 1985 was fine, though not all the stories have stayed with me upon finishing the book. Here are the ones that I have:

Russell Banks' "Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story" is about a man who dates a woman he finds unattractive just for laughs but something changes there.

Margaret Edwards' "Roses" is about a woman who meets a man at a conference and has a fling with him.

Peter Meinke's "The Piano Tuner" follows a man's descent into madness as a professional piano tuner comes to the man's home and it seems as though it will take literally forever to get that piano tuned.

"City of Boys" by Beth Nugent is by far my favorite story in this collection. A young woman is trying to make her way in the big city.

I also enjoyed Joy Williams' "The Skater" where a young woman is taken around to visit prospective colleges, and her parents mourn the loss of the young woman's dead sister. It's a very moving story.

And that's all I have to report.

[Mattschratz · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were several stories about spacemen or about pianos. I got this book because 1985 is the year I was born. The stories are actually from 1984, so maybe I should read BASS 1986 instead.

[Jakon Hays · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Best American Stories 1985

Start date – Sept 10 2010


Finish date – March 4 2011

So, in closing, here is the breakdown for BASS 1985

It took -

5 months 22 days

or

25 weeks

or

175 days

or

125 week days

Which works out to:

One story every – 8.75 days

Gender profile of the anthology - 10 men and 10 women. (hummm – suspicious)

Stories from representing certain magazines more than once. – The Missouri Review – 2, The Paris Review – 2, Atlantic Monthly – 3, The Virginia Quarterly Review – 2, Esquire - 2.


Wow, almost 6 months to complete this anthology. Well, I suppose that “life” had a little bit to do with this. I will forever associate this volume of the series with the birth of my son. Even with this wonderful association, this volume was a hard read. I was so distracted by everything, and there really weren’t stories to pull me through.


There were standouts –

“The Sudden Trees”, “You’ve come a Long Way Mickey Mouse”, “Fellow Creatures” and “Angela”.

I couldn’t synch up my reading with my drive to write about a particular story. I finished several other novels as I struggled through this volume – most notably, Resurrection by Tolstoy.

Now that I’ve entered into a new phase of my life…a new chapter…a new segment, I’m ready to attack the next volume with vigor.


Bring on 1986...PLEASE!

http://yearsofbass.blogspot.com/2011/...

[Grant Reynolds · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked it, didn't love it. There were definitely strong stories in the collection including my favorite The Piano Tuner by Peter Meinke that is fantastic. All of the stories are well written and interesting but overall the collection is pretty sad. There is a lot of death, especially young people or children's death so it was hard to read multiple stories in a row without without feeling blue.

It was interesting reading this collection just over 30 years after it was published. The themes and tones of the stories are so different from what's being written today. Drama relating to living abroad, the cold war, European immigration and Vietnam were prevalent throughout and are much smaller voices in more recent collections.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nearly as hit-or-miss as Hortense Calisher's editorial turn four years previous; however, as usual, the cream did rise. My favorites, in rough order of preference:

Jane Smiley - "Lily"
Joy Williams - "The Skater"
Russell Banks - "Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story"
Ethan Canin - "Emperor of the Air"
Wright Morris - "Fellow-Creatures"
Norman Rush - "Instruments of Seduction"