The Granta Book of the American Short Story, Volume One

The Granta Book of the American Short Story #1

by Richard Ford (Editor), Bernard Malamud (Contributor), Donald Barthelme (Contributor)

Richard Ford, who is among the finest of American novelists and short-story writers, edits and introduces this volume. First published by Granta Books in 1992, it became the definitive anthology of American short fiction written in the last half of the twentieth century - an 'exemplary choice' in the words of the Washington Post - with stories by writers such as Eudora Welty, John Cheever and Raymond Carver (and forty others) demonstrating how much memorable power can lie in the briefest narration. Along with The New Granta Book of the American Short Story , this book constitutes an important reflection and judgement of recent American writing - as well as the superb pleasure yielded by the stories themselves.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, American, Anthologies, Literary Fiction, Collections, Writing

736 pages, softcover

First published January 7, 1993

About the author

Richard Ford, born February 16, 1944 in Jackson, Mississippi, is an American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day, The Lay of the Land and Let Me Be Frank With You, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories. Comparisons have been drawn between Ford's work and the writings of John Updike, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and Walker Percy.

His novel Independence Day won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1996, also winning the PEN/Faulkner Award in the same year.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best ones in this collection are :

The Babysitter by Robert Coover
Well, Coover wrote metafiction with a very high boredom content most of the time (see Pricksongs and Descants for my rant) but this story is a total delight. A teenage girl is babysitting and some lads are going to break in to the house where they know she is. So, the situation is one of menace and dread, and a standard one in most slasher flicks. Coover writes the whole story, with some alternative scenes, then slices everything up into chunks of two to four paras, throws all the sections in the air and sticks them back together any old how. By this method he achieves a considerable intensification of the suspense and horror.

Bridging by Max Apple
If there is a typical post WW2 American story it's like this one. A single parent looking after his withdrawn baseball-fan daughter, and worrying. That's all. Wonderful stuff.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
A great heartbreaking short story which I thought didn't work at all when she expanded it into a novel, but you can't blame her for trying.

The Fireman's Wife by Richard Bausch
This young, handsome fireman, he's a great guy, he's even something of a hero, but his wife realises, as the day winds on, that she's still going to leave him. Seems that the stories I like the best are the sad, wistful ones. Could be.

[Chris Gager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Borrowed from my sister Tracy in Worcester over the weekend. I'll read this alongside "Lust For Life". This edition is blue and hardcover. Edited/curated by Richard Ford. 7/9... I finished another mediocre Joyce Carol Oates novel. I've read some of her s.stories and I think I like those better. There's one in here. Starting tonight...
I finally did get started Saturday night and read the first two stories. Are the two Bowles related? The story by Paul is a shocker and very strange. Seems like I might have read it a long time ago. More tonight... I can't be writing something about every story and author. There are too many. I'll try to stick with the highest lights. Last night that was "Blackberry Winter" by Robert Penn Warren. Very similar to Eudora Welty I thought. Tennessee instead of Mississippi. The natural world/human world interface well described.
Now much further in with many stories read but many more to go. I've encountered various kinds of experimental prose from three different female authors: Eudora Welty, Grace Paley and Flannery O'Connor. All interesting... The realtive duds: Kurt Vonnegut(a story I read years ago in Playboy), and "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson which I also may have read already. The highlights: Bernard Malamud and James Baldwin. JB might not be that great a writer but the emotional content was very affecting.
Last night... only one story read but it was a great one: "In the Zoo" by Jean Stafford. Takes place in a fictionalized Ft. Collins in the 30's and 40's(I think) and reminded me of "Housekeeping" and "Tree of Smoke"(an odd combo). I always wonder if the "reminded of" writers, if later in time, had read what I'd just read and subconsciously used it. Like Grace Paley's story, this was an epic in miniature. A story of misery, suffering and death revolving around two connected moments of brutality and revenge. There's an amazing connection between these two stories and "Tree of Smoke" as well but I won't be a spoiler.
Tuesday night and two more read including another in experimental/ poetic/modern mode by Stanley Elkin. Then an insane bit of chaos from Joyce Carol Oates. Kind of like the one from Paul Bowles. Weird...
Thursday night/Wed. AM... I finished William Gass' story this morning after starting yesterday. I recently came across his name with some reference to him being some kind of American literary holy man. If I'd ever heard of him I'd forgotten but that doesn't mean much. That's true of a lot of great writers. So... I was really looking forward to reading "In the Heart of the Heart of the Country". And then dismayed to find that it's pretty much poetry masquerading as prose. Each of the various parts is like mini essay. Not really fiction. But then my mind adjusted and I was enthralled. Notes and quotes:
- "Mud presently."... a great sentence. Could be the title of a poem.
- "it's better to live in the country... than in any city, in any stinking fog of human beings, in any blooming orchard of machines."
- Reminds me of Plath and Eliot at times.
- Beddoes? Holsclaw? Rilke?(actually I have HEARD of Rilke...)
- "It isn't necessary to suppose our cows have feelings; our neighbor hasn't as many as he used to have either;"(cows or feelings?)
- Thomas Lovell Beddoes was an English 19th century poet. Committed suicide. Don't they all? Still no luck with Holsclaw.

This story was preceded by more crazy-experimental stuff by Donald Barthelme. Not poetry but sort of stream of conscience. We probably have Faulkner and Joyce to thank for it. I'm hoping for more conventional choices from here on out - halfway through now. But...
Slow going this weekend due to my two-job busy-ness. I did read J. A. MacPherson's railroad story. My mother, younger sister and I rode on the Broadway Limited from NYC to Chicago and then the California Zephyr to Oakland in the summer of 1962. Right around the time of the end of the story. I rode the current Zephyr out to Cali a few years ago. All those jobs for black men are pretty scarce now but there were/are still waiters and stewards and such(all black men) on those trains from Chicago west.

Slow going... I'm working two jobs and today's the first day off for me in almost two weeks. It sucks but I need the $$$. I've managed to read only one more story in days, that being "The Babysitter" by Robert Coover, the author of that fantasy baseball book I read years ago. This is yet another exercise in experimental writing. Another approach. Can't say that I like it particularly but it was sort of interesting.
Next day... even more progress as I read a few more stories: The Ray Carver I'd read before of course - wonderful as always(the blind TV detective is "Longstreet"/James Franciscus(?)). Also more post-modernist craziness in "City Boy" and Gayl Jones' vivid slice of ghetto life.
I got back to it last(Friday) evening with two more stories. A bit more conventional slice of life from a kid's perspective from Joy Williams and "Fugue in A-Minor", a jazzy tale reminiscent of a Lord Buckley "soliloquy"... all good.

I've found a bit more reading time lately and have read a few more. The "end" is sort of in sight. "Here Come the Maples", "Pretty Ice" and "Greenwich Time" are New Yorker ballads of Waspy unhappiness. All skillfully wrought by Updike, Mary Robison, and Ann Beattie. "Testimony of Pilot" is another mini-epic and very moving. One of my favorites so far...

Only one last night but it was devastating. A prose-poetic stream of consciouness visit to the darkest side of our culture. People do live there... kids too. "Lechery" by Jayne Anne Phillips.

I'm still plugging away as I find the time. Three more finished": "Liars in Love" by R. Yates is another devastating portrait of an gutless, equivocating American middle class Momma's boy a la' Frank in "R. Road". As with that book the outcome for the reader is compromised by Yates' awkward prose style, which harkens back to the earlier 20th century of Wilder, Steinbeck, Lewis etc. Sounds "square," man. Jamaica Kincaid's story is reasonably effective but too mild in it's evocation of coming of age separation, rejection and bitterness. "Territory"(David Leavitt) stands out for it's theme of a young gay man finding his emotional and social place in the world. Different...

I wonder if I'll have room to finish this review? Seven more to go. Last night I read "Bridging" by Max Apple. Kind of the same vein as "The Circling Hand" but from the parent's perspective. Touching... Then "Greasy Lake" by T.C. Boyle where teenage wanna-be hoodlums meet some adult badness and slink away: a la "Superbad"'s brilliant party scene. I just read another Boyle story in the latest N. Yorker. Another dissection of young male cluelessness. Boyle's a master of those stories.

Nearing the end now. Read "American Express" last night. A lyrical, disturbing, complex and fascinating story of how two men find a way to be imtimate that works for them. Might not work for you and me though... This was preceded by a forlorn Tobias Wolff updating of the Cain and Abel story.

Just read "The Joy Luck Club" which of course have since been upgraded to a novel and a movie. Very moving story. Almost done now but I just discovered that there's a further, more contemporary collection too. I'll put it on my "to read" list.

Read another one last night. Three more to go... "The Fireman's Wife": A pungent depiction of a mismatched young wife's desparation. Pressured by "outsiders" to ignore her unhappiness. I also read last weeks's story in "The New Yorker". A typically abrupt, funny and rueful tale of Modern Montana from Thomas McGuane.

Hoo Rah... finally finished with the last three stories:
"Hot Ice" by Stuart Dybek - a lyrical mini-epic visit with some Chicano Chicago losers. The ending is beautiful but heavy with symbol. I have no idea what it means.
"You're Ugly Too" by Lorrie Moore(a New Yorker fave) - another look inside a routinely troubled life. Very funny...
"The Things They Carried' - included for it's cultural relevance I assume. Seems like I might have read it before. Kind of flat/trite to me but maybe it was my mood. Maybe I've just had enough of the Vietnam thing(I was there) after "Tree of Smoke" and all the rest.

[Nicholas Armstrong · Rating 2 out of 5]

I generally get the feeling that I'm wrong in all of my opinions of literature and story-telling because it just is not copacetic with what smart guys like Ford say. Did that sound sarcastic? Man, even without inflection I sound like a jackass.

But really, most American authors have a propensity towards the modern or post-modern form of writing - slice of life or stream of consciousness if you like, since these are often the same. Richard Ford, who I do respect as an author and a writer very much, is no different in this regard. Which is to say, I liked this about as much as most of the American story collections I've read, which is not very much.

And this is difficult for me. I'm fond of American's, or the idea of them anyway. And I'm very fond of stories, so there should be some place these two intersect where I'm very happy, in theory anyway.

I think there must be something to the American spirit, or at least the creative American spirit, which finds some sense of camaraderie with something which is rambling, often pointless, and fiercely insistent on its importance.

Wait, I think it makes sense now, nevermind.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ford has selected 43 wonderful and diverse stories, far too many to comment on, except to note that he should have included one of his own, so I will instead comment on his fabulous introduction, which, like his introduction to the Chekov collection he edited, is full of wisdom about what good stories are or should be; and it is written in a penetrating, yet wandering Fordian style, with lots of long complex sentences which I am trying to imitate with this one. For example, literature is “frequently about things that aren’t clear but that need clearing up so that we can lead morally responsible or even pleasurable lives—things we may not want to do because they’re difficult” (xiii). And, “We come to literature…for, among other things, a view of morality in action, one of morality’s main tenets being how we assess those human choices made as a consequence of no choice being clearly the right one” (xiii). And how about this gem: “it will contain what a nation in its heart of hearts and represented by its writers feels should be paid attention to more closely but for reasons of difficulty or obscurity or human frailty or simple inaccessibility is in danger of being lost” (xiv). Ford’s essay ranges over questions about the possibility of defining a national literature, of defining the short-story form, before pausing to take up questions about what literature is and why short stories get written (“Short stories indeed feel as though they arise out of some fierce schism which they by their very existence mean to reconcile” (xix). !! yes, !!), and then lays out what his standards were for selecting the stories in this collection. What the essay finally accomplishes is a statement of Ford’s aesthetic.

[James Kinsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, took me an age, but I guess the joy of a short story collection is to pick up and put down at will. Overall a quality selection of short stories. You're never going to love every one, but again, the joy is that if you don't like this one, you're only a few pages from the next. An interesting choice to compile them straightforwardly in date order, rather than try and balance them thematically or group them - but that gives you more room to take each one at face value. Definitely introduced me to some writers I'll look into more, and it's good to make the adjustment to fiction in short bursts. A very positive reading experience.

[Ronald Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable collection of short stories, introduced with a stimulating essay on this art form by editor Richard Ford.

I’ve read quite a few short-fiction anthologies of late, and while this one contained some of the usual standards (e.g. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried), it also presented some impressive new stories by authors both new and familiar to me. These included: “A Distant Episode” by Paul Bowles, "In the Heart of the Heart of the Country" by Warren Gass, “The Babysitter” by Robert Coover, “Train” by Joy Williams, “Liars in Love” by Richard Yates, and “Hot Ice” by Stuart Dybek.

[Karima · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this book (1992 edition) because I wanted to read James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" (1957)and confess that I only read one other story in the collection. (Can't remeber the title, but the author was Wm. Kotzwinkle of E.T. fame)
This book is worth revisiting, again and again. It has short works by some of my favorites,Jamaica Kinkaid, Eudora Welty, Wallace Stegner, Lorrie Moore and John Cheever , to name just a few.
I'm sure I will return to it, as well as the more recent Granta collections.

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

REQ'd 7/22 - found in card catalog while looking for Shirley Jackson. Checked out 27 Jul; started 4 Aug 2008; took back to lib 19 Aug.

Skimmed thru the intro essay - jumped around/skipped thru this gigantic tome - took it back to the library after getting about 2/3 of the way through it. Some really good stuff (whose titles I have failed to recall), but too much all at once, especially combined with a Shirley Jackson short story collection.

[Maria del Pilar · Rating 3 out of 5]

To learn to write short stories, analyzing the way the writer graps the readers' attention.

[Raul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fairly comprehensive look at post-war American fiction.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used this book as an introduction to new/unfamiliar writers and as such was not disappointed.

[Christian Kiefer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took me a while but I read every story in this excellent collection. Amazing breadth of stories here. Starting the second volume soon enough...

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

"A Distant Episode" by Paul Bowles was absolutely haunting.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good overview of American short stories with some amazing stuff in. "O City of Broken Dreams", "Are These Actual Miles?", "Testimony of a Pilot", "Liars in Love", "Territory", "Bridging", "The Fireman's Wife", "You're Ugly, Too", and "The Things They Carried" jump out as the best. Sure, not every story is a winner, but it's a great way to find new authors to explore. 3.5.

[Terri · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just couldn't get into this book at all. Impenetrable. And I tried hard and read several stories.

[Brett Wallach · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like Ford’s own fiction, the stories here are bloviating and incredibly boring. With a couple of exceptions.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection. Not all the stories/novellas were great, but most were pretty good, and several were amazing. Ford's intro is interesting if you're interested in novellas and what makes a novella, though in the end he doesn't really answer this question -- not that there's an answer anyway. He brings up some great points along the way, provides some nice history, I'll read it again and again. The only shocking exclusion from the anthology was Jim Harrison. Harrison has to be the country's most prolific novella writer, and yet nothing. I think he even mentions Harrison in the intro, and yet nothing. The two writers' styles are similar enough that I'm sure Ford has read and enjoys Harrison. Some old descriptions of the anthology describe its including Harrison (as well as Tobias Wolff), so perhaps Ford couldn't get permission. Still, he mentions wanting to include "A River Runs Through It" and not being able to obtain permission for that. Anyway, there were several novellas I wish I could replace with any of a number of Harrison novellas, though such is the nature of an anthology. This is a wonderful intro to the form as well as a great collection for anyone already familiar with it.

Eudora Welty's "June Recital" was great, though not my style (not at this time, anyway) -- it was pretty Faulknerian, which I don't think I was ready or looking for. William Styron's "The Long March" had some great moments, though I don't know that I'd be interested in seeking him out. "Goodbye, Columbus" started out amazing, with probably the best of Roth's writing I've ever read, though about halfway through it turned a bit sentimental and story-driven, and I lost some interest and became disappointed, which is how I always feel when I read Roth. Like, That's it? Gaines' "A Long Day in November" I found appallingly simplistic and quite boring; I wasn't sure what Ford saw in it. Elkin's "The Making of Ashendon" was great. Typical of Elkin, amazing writing, etc. I don't know that I've ever seen a writer switch from first to third person halfway through a piece. Elkin does it absolutely smoothly here. Peter Taylor's "The Old Forest" was pretty good, though again I don't know that I'm champing at the bit to read more of his work. "Rosa" was typical of the only other thing I've read by Ozick, "The Shawl," which is to say very dramatic. Good, but.

Jane Smiley's "The Age of Grief" was the definite standout here. I actually cried at the end. Never have I read a more efficient, distilled, accurate (or so it seemed) depiction of marriage, and of having a young family and of getting older. And I read a lot of that sort of thing. This was simply incredible, and I'll definitely seek out more of Smiley's work, asap.

Oates' piece did nothing for me, it never sunk it's teeth in, but Barry Hannah's "Hey, Have You Got a Cig, the News, the Time, My Face?" was the collection's second standout. It reminded me of Elkin, in a way, in the narrator's tendency to rant, or to border on misanthropy. This was complex, funny, touching, sad, and a great overall story. I need to read more Hannah, for sure. This, along with Smiley's piece, makes the collection worth it, if nothing else does.

The final story, "Caroline's Wedding," seemed unspectacular to me. It was a story I'd read many, many times. It would have been great if the collection had ended with Hannah, but what can you do. The collection is almost fifteen years old, and it would be great if Granta published a "New Book of the American Long Story," as they did with the short story. We'll see. We'll see. Meantime I need to go gorge myself on Smiley and Hannah.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm done reading Long Stories. I guess maybe I don't like Long Stories very much or I don't like Richard Ford's taste in Long Stories very much, because these Long Stories were mostly very much a disappointment. Full standings, with detail:

June Recital (Eudora Whitely): 5/10. Her prose makes me feel like I have dyslexia. Also longer than it needed to be.
The Long March (William Stryon): 7/10. Fine, but not anything great. Just solid, basic, typical american short/long story writing.
Goodbye, Columbus (Phillip Roth): 8.5/10. Really enjoyed this. It didn't sound that much like Roth to me. I guess his style evolved quite a bit over time. The ending just felt a little weak, so -.5
A Long Day In November (Ernest J. Gaines): 0/10. I didn't read this. Quit after 5 pages cause I just couldn't stand the style. Some gimmick with a mentally challenged narrator or something. I dunno. Seemed like that was all the story had to stand on.
The Making of Ashenden (Stanley Elkin): 8.5/10. This would be a 9 if it didn't have such an absurd and weird ending. It was almost too much, honestly, I still can't really understand the point of it.
The Old Forest (Peter Taylor): 7/10. This was fine, but also pretty bland. Standard-ass story about a society of manners or whatever. It didn't help that I didn't like most of the characters or their actions.
Rosa (Cynthia Ozick): 9.5/10. Best story of the collection. Enjoyed it a lot, and liked it in almost every way.
The Age of Grief (Jane Smiley): 8.5/10. I thought Jane Smiley wrote thrillers or something? I guess not. This was very good. Perhaps a tad long.
I Lock My Door Upon Myself (Joyce Carol Oates): 0/10. Didn't finish this one. Read like 15 pages of it and quit. Couldn't tolerate the style. It felt like I was seeing the events through binoculars or something. I've read a few things by JCO, and I only liked one of them: the famous Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been. This was a lot different than that. I dunno the style just didn't work for me at all.
Hey, Have You Got A Cig, The Time, The News, My Face? (Barry Hannah): 7/10. This was pretty good. I enjoyed it, but not a lot, and nothing really stood out as particularly interesting (the title is somewhat unique I guess, but I didn't really catch how it applied to the story).
Caroline's Wedding (Edwidge Danticat): 0/10. Didn't finish it. It was just so dull and plain it didn't feel worth my time.

I guess I'm happy I can move on from this. Overall it really wasn't a collection I liked much at all.

[Red Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty good set of 11 Long Stories.

William Styron - The Long March. Having march in the same NC as depicted by Styron, I think he captures the essence of NC, and also that friction between the inefficiency of the military, and the benefits to the training to force the soldiers to overcome and endure that inefficiency in order to prepare to fight. - Lt. Culver fought in WWII in Okinawa, and now is somewhat unexpectedly called out of his comfortable civilian life for Korea - "months later at camp, ensnared futilely in the coils of some administrative fly-paper, Culver would find himself gazing up from his work and out across the smoky hot barrens of pine and sand, relieving his vast boredom in a day-dream of that vanished simplicity and charm."

Ernest J. Gaines - A Long Day in November. I had not heard of this story but enjoyed reading, from a boy's perspective, the troubled marriage driven by the husband spending too much time with his car, and the input of the fortune teller to him when he goes for advice.

Jane Smiley - The Age of Grief. I think this was my favorite story of the 11 in the collection. A father thinks of his daughters, and their perception that the marriage of their parents is troubled, "I with they were boys and completely oblivious, as I was. I could not have said, before I met Dana, whether my parents' marriage was happy or not. I didn't know."

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've only gotten to a handful of these but so far the Eudora Welty, which made me feel silly for ever trying to write, blows them all away.