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The Best American Short Stories 2023
A collection of the year’s best short stories, selected by National Book Award finalist Min Jin Lee and series editor Heidi Pitlor.
“Without stories, we cannot live well,” shares guest editor Min Jin Lee, describing how storytelling affects and nurtures readers. The Best American Short Stories 2023 features twenty pieces of short fiction that reflect a world full of fractured relationships, but also wondrous hope. A lifelong friendship may become a casualty of the Russia-Ukraine war. Rejected by his lover, a man seeks to reconcile with his family. Twitter users miraculously muster enough empathy to help a lost cat find a forever home. Enlightening, poignant, and undeniably human, the stories in this anthology bravely confront societal darkness and offer, in Lee’s words, “our emotional truths, restoring our sanity and providing comfort for the days ahead.”
The Best American Short Stories 2023 includes Cherline Bazile • Maya Binyam • Tom Bissell • Taryn Bowe • Da-Lin • Benjamin Ehrlich• Sara Freeman • Lauren Groff • Nathan Harris • Jared Jackson • Sana Krasikov • Danica Li • Ling Ma • Manuel Muñoz • Joanna Pearson • Souvankham Thammavongsa • Kosiso Ugwueze • Corinna Vallianatos • Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi • Esther Yi
“Without stories, we cannot live well,” shares guest editor Min Jin Lee, describing how storytelling affects and nurtures readers. The Best American Short Stories 2023 features twenty pieces of short fiction that reflect a world full of fractured relationships, but also wondrous hope. A lifelong friendship may become a casualty of the Russia-Ukraine war. Rejected by his lover, a man seeks to reconcile with his family. Twitter users miraculously muster enough empathy to help a lost cat find a forever home. Enlightening, poignant, and undeniably human, the stories in this anthology bravely confront societal darkness and offer, in Lee’s words, “our emotional truths, restoring our sanity and providing comfort for the days ahead.”
The Best American Short Stories 2023 includes Cherline Bazile • Maya Binyam • Tom Bissell • Taryn Bowe • Da-Lin • Benjamin Ehrlich• Sara Freeman • Lauren Groff • Nathan Harris • Jared Jackson • Sana Krasikov • Danica Li • Ling Ma • Manuel Muñoz • Joanna Pearson • Souvankham Thammavongsa • Kosiso Ugwueze • Corinna Vallianatos • Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi • Esther Yi
336 pages, Paperback
First published October 17, 2023
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About the author
Min Jin Lee
17 books8,586 followersMin Jin Lee’s novel Pachinko (Feb 2017) is a national bestseller, a New York Times Editor’s Choice and an American Booksellers Association’s Indie Next Great Reads. Lee’s debut novel Free Food for Millionaires (May 2007) was a No. 1 Book Sense Pick, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, a Wall Street Journal Juggle Book Club selection, and a national bestseller; it was a Top 10 Novels of the Year for The Times of London, NPR’s Fresh Air and USA Today.
Min Jin went to Yale College where she was awarded both the Henry Wright Prize for Nonfiction and the James Ashmun Veech Prize for Fiction. She attended law school at Georgetown University and worked as a lawyer for several years in New York prior to writing full time.
She has received the NYFA Fellowship for Fiction, the Peden Prize from The Missouri Review for Best Story, and the Narrative Prize for New and Emerging Writer. Her fiction has been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts and has appeared most recently in One Story. Her writings about books, travel and food have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The Times Literary Supplement, Conde Nast Traveler, The Times of London, Vogue (US), Travel + Leisure (SEA), Wall Street Journal and Food & Wine. Her personal essays have been anthologized in To Be Real, Breeder, The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Work, One Big Happy Family, Sugar in My Bowl, and The Global and the Intimate: Feminism in Our Time. She served three consecutive seasons as a Morning Forum columnist of the Chosun Ilbo of South Korea.
Lee has spoken about writing, politics, film and literature at various institutions including Columbia University, French Institute Alliance Francaise, The Center for Fiction, Tufts, Loyola Marymount University, Stanford, Johns Hopkins (SAIS), University of Connecticut, Boston College, Hamilton College, Hunter College of New York, Harvard Law School, Yale University, Ewha University, Waseda University, the American School in Japan, World Women’s Forum, Korean Community Center (NJ), the Hay Literary Festival (UK), the Tokyo American Center of the U.S. Embassy, the Asia House (UK), and the Asia Society in New York, San Francisco and Hong Kong. In 2017, she won the Literary Death Match (Brooklyn/Episode 8), and she is a proud alumna of Women of Letters (Public Theater).
From 2007 to 2011, Min Jin lived in Tokyo where she researched and wrote Pachinko. She lives in New York with her family.
Min Jin went to Yale College where she was awarded both the Henry Wright Prize for Nonfiction and the James Ashmun Veech Prize for Fiction. She attended law school at Georgetown University and worked as a lawyer for several years in New York prior to writing full time.
She has received the NYFA Fellowship for Fiction, the Peden Prize from The Missouri Review for Best Story, and the Narrative Prize for New and Emerging Writer. Her fiction has been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts and has appeared most recently in One Story. Her writings about books, travel and food have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The Times Literary Supplement, Conde Nast Traveler, The Times of London, Vogue (US), Travel + Leisure (SEA), Wall Street Journal and Food & Wine. Her personal essays have been anthologized in To Be Real, Breeder, The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Work, One Big Happy Family, Sugar in My Bowl, and The Global and the Intimate: Feminism in Our Time. She served three consecutive seasons as a Morning Forum columnist of the Chosun Ilbo of South Korea.
Lee has spoken about writing, politics, film and literature at various institutions including Columbia University, French Institute Alliance Francaise, The Center for Fiction, Tufts, Loyola Marymount University, Stanford, Johns Hopkins (SAIS), University of Connecticut, Boston College, Hamilton College, Hunter College of New York, Harvard Law School, Yale University, Ewha University, Waseda University, the American School in Japan, World Women’s Forum, Korean Community Center (NJ), the Hay Literary Festival (UK), the Tokyo American Center of the U.S. Embassy, the Asia House (UK), and the Asia Society in New York, San Francisco and Hong Kong. In 2017, she won the Literary Death Match (Brooklyn/Episode 8), and she is a proud alumna of Women of Letters (Public Theater).
From 2007 to 2011, Min Jin lived in Tokyo where she researched and wrote Pachinko. She lives in New York with her family.
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August 17, 2024
Reviews of the individual stories below, but first some commentary on the anthology as a whole.
This is my second time reading one of these volumes (the first was 2019), and it’s interesting to compare them, giving a sense of the guest editor’s tastes. Here’s what stands out about this one:
- Short means short: the average story has 14 pages, with a few at just 6-8.
- First person: a full 15 out of 20 stories, which was a lot for me. Only one story does anything interesting with perspective or structure; the others (first and third person alike) are straightforward single points-of-view with at most some unreliability from the narrator.
- Female-dominated, racial diversity: This is generally true of these anthologies, and perhaps the current market overall, but especially so here: 15 of the stories are by women and over half by authors of color, with a lot of diversity of background all around.
- Contemporary realism only: On the other hand, while the 2019 collection included three historical stories and three dystopian or fantastical stories, the 2023 features only modern, realistic settings (a few include hallucinations, but that happens in real life too). Disappointingly narrow for an anthology claiming to represent the best regardless of genre.
- But not domestic realism: Only a handful of stories deal much with marriage or parenting. Far more focus on cultural issues, on friendships, on community, on searches for identity and meaning.
While I’d personally have preferred a reduction of the first-person onslaught, and a bit more risk-taking and genre variation, the anthology did ultimately win me over—it helped that I liked the second half, overall, much better than those in the first.
Below are notes on the individual stories (what I always want from reviews of collections):
Tender by Cherline Bazile: An immigrant high school student struggles in her relationship with her best friend, mostly because she has declared herself the only one with a right to a bad home life. Unfortunately the anthology started out with a bit of a dud for me; this one is structurally plain, has too many characters in too few pages, and we never actually see this awful home life, either.
Do You Belong to Anybody? by Maya Binyam: Happily, I loved the second story, my favorite of the anthology. A man returns to his native Ethiopia after many years away, for initially unclear reasons, and it’s this absurdist tragicomedy, relayed in a voice I can best describe as “Murderbot with amnesia”—except the narrator doesn’t have amnesia, he just doesn’t feel like sharing. And is maybe neurodivergent, but certainly traumatized. I spent the whole story trying to figure out what was going on and then read it all over again once I did, which is exactly what I want from a short story. Turns out the author expanded it into a novel, which I plan to read.
His Finest Moment by Tom Bissell: A famous novelist and serial sexual harasser attempts to warn his teenage daughter before the story of his bad behavior breaks. I appreciate this story for its convincing development of a perspective from which I wouldn’t want to read a whole novel, but showing that perspective is basically all it does. Almost more snapshot than story.
Camp Emeline by Taryn Bowe: A family who lost their youngest child sets up a camp for disabled kids, as seen through the eyes of the teenage sister, who is struggling. Said sister gets involved with a 24-year-old camp employee, who’s also had a rough life, and this helps, I guess? As with the first story, I was underwhelmed—it’s structurally ordinary and didn’t make me feel.
Treasure Island Alley by Da-Lin: After the last two stories, the sheer ambition of this one was a breath of fresh air. It’s about the meaning of death, through both science and religion, and covers the entire long life of a Taiwanese-American woman through the prism of a single day when she was five. I’m not sure it entirely succeeds—perhaps because it’s only 13 pages long; when Ted Chiang did it he took four times that—but it’s certainly interesting.
The Master Mourner by Benjamin Ehrlich: Is this even a story? I’m afraid I don’t get it at all. Seven pages consisting mostly of descriptions of a couple of eccentric adults in an Orthodox Jewish boy’s community, followed by an out-of-nowhere epiphany and a deliberately vague ending.
The Company of Others by Sara Freeman: Each year, it seems, there’s one particular story that stands out for its combination of great writing and no imagination. While her husband and young daughter are away, a woman contemplates her ambivalence about parenting and her relationship with her own dead mother, and wonders if maybe she never should have married her husband at all. I wondered if maybe something would ever happen, but it didn’t.
Annunciation by Lauren Groff: Another young woman seeking her path, and things definitely happen in this one, as our narrator gets to know a couple of overlooked, eccentric women in her community—her elderly German immigrant landlady, and a coworker who is an evangelical van-dweller fleeing domestic violence. There is tragedy, and the narrator comes to understand her own mother better. Some strong character sketches, and it depicts the Bay Area with a vivid sense of place. It never quite popped for me though: the narrator and her story aren’t quite strong enough as the linchpin that must hold it all together, and the ending felt a bit weak and conventional.
The Mine by Nathan Harris: A South African man has risen to manage a mine, but there’s a tragedy and he feels haunted by visions locally understood to represent a guilty conscience. Unfortunately, this story just felt inauthentic to me. There’s no sense of place (and indeed, the author is American, with no mention of even visiting South Africa), everyone including the miners speaks formal American English, and the first-person voice likewise sounds like a college-educated American, whereas the narrator is supposed to have apprenticed in a mine from boyhood.
Bebo by Jared Jackson: All right, now this one brings the voice, as well as the sense of place. It’s a boys-in-the-hood story featuring young teens in the inner city, in which the narrator must confront his failings as a friend to a boy worse off than himself. I found this one very strong, though tragic and sometimes gross. At first it felt like the story was being a little hard on the narrator—the whole world has failed Bebo; what is another kid supposed to do about it?—but on reflection, isn’t that the purpose of friendship, to be there for someone even if you can’t make it better?
The Muddle by Sana Krasikov: This time the friends are two Ukrainian women in their 60s: one Jewish, a nonconformist, an immigrant to the U.S.; the other more of a follower, remaining in Ukraine with her Russian husband. When Russia invades, the U.S.-based woman tries to convince her friend to get out, and must ultimately confront the limits on what we can do about how those around us live their lives and what they choose to believe. A solid and timely story, and the conversations feel very realistic, though it’s missing that extra something for me, the characters a bit lacking in depth and the sense of lives lived.
My Brother William by Danica Li: This story has all the depth and feeling I was missing from the last one, following the relationship of an adult brother and sister over several decades of their lives. A beautiful, poignant story, that I think will touch anyone who has a sibling they don’t see often, and that really brings the leads to life despite being only 14 pages long. The real vs. virtual world musings didn’t add much for me, but I still thought it was great.
Peking Duck by Ling Ma: The one story in the collection to play with perspective, to use structure to illustrate its themes—this is a very artsy story, in other words, yet seems to be the most popular of the bunch. Featuring a Chinese-American writer who mines her immigrant mother’s experiences in her fiction, it asks questions about who really knows a story, who has the right to tell it. And it’s fascinatingly recursive: I think I liked it, in a complicated way; in any case, while some of the others feel chosen at random, this one clearly belongs in a best-of collection.
Compromisos by Manuel Muñoz: A gay Mexican-American father tries to reconcile with his family when his relationship with a man proves to have no future. This is… fine? Like several of the stories in this collection, it’s so restrained that its emotional impact was blunted for me. We never even meet the young daughter who seems to be the father’s primary reason to return. A visually vivid story, and an interesting perspective, but not memorable for me.
Grand Mal by Joanna Pearson: A literary crime story with an unreliable narrator: this one is good, and had me going back through it for clues once I’d finished. It’s also been turned into a novel, which I don’t plan to read because I don’t like murder mysteries, but I did like the story.
Trash by Souvankham Thammavongsa: A 6-page anecdote narrated by a naïve and sloppy 32-year-old grocery store cashier, about meeting her ambitious lawyer mother-in-law, who of course disapproves. From the contributor’s note, the author is impressed with her own story, but I can’t say the same; it all felt obvious, with some weird moments (who would wait 2 hours in a parking lot for someone’s shift to end rather than going elsewhere or coming in? Why does the narrator think she’s “worked her way up” at the grocery store when she’s still a cashier?).
Supernova by Kosiso Ugwueze: A depressed and recently suicidal young woman is kidnapped from a bus in Nigeria and held for ransom. I liked this one, particularly the Nigerian English and Isioma’s inability to muster the level of respect and fear her captors expect, all while still behaving believably. The growing rapport with the captors is interesting too. Of the stories that haven’t yet been turned into novels, this is the one I’d most like to see.
This Isn’t the Actual Sea by Corinna Vallianatos: A surprisingly good story about a friendship between two middle-aged artists, a writer and a filmmaker. I’m not sure I entirely understood it, but prefer a bit of artsiness over obviousness in a short story, and the portrayal of the friendship between the two women and the filmmaker’s relationship to her art felt very real.
It Is What It Is by Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi: A slightly bonkers story about two Iranian expat women—roommates, grad students—in Chicago, who both seem to be losing their minds. It’s the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and there’s a series of tragedies or near-misses affecting their homeland (see this review for a timeline). I liked it more than I didn’t. It really isn’t about the cat.
Moon by Esther Yi: An uptight young woman attends a K-pop concert and becomes completely obsessed with a member of the boy band. I didn’t really connect with this one, and thought it ended too soon: we’re still within days of the concert, too early to know whether this will actually change the narrator’s life forever or if it’s just a weird blip. The novel it turned into would no doubt answer the question but I’m not that interested.
At any rate, I’m glad I read the anthology in the end; the stories are well-written (though I had a chuckle at the “‘Coincidence,’ she emitted tersely” in the penultimate story!) with some variation in subject matter if not in genre, and it introduced me to a bunch of new authors.
EDIT: Well, I found out where all the experimental and genre-bending literary stories went this year! Check out The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners.
This is my second time reading one of these volumes (the first was 2019), and it’s interesting to compare them, giving a sense of the guest editor’s tastes. Here’s what stands out about this one:
- Short means short: the average story has 14 pages, with a few at just 6-8.
- First person: a full 15 out of 20 stories, which was a lot for me. Only one story does anything interesting with perspective or structure; the others (first and third person alike) are straightforward single points-of-view with at most some unreliability from the narrator.
- Female-dominated, racial diversity: This is generally true of these anthologies, and perhaps the current market overall, but especially so here: 15 of the stories are by women and over half by authors of color, with a lot of diversity of background all around.
- Contemporary realism only: On the other hand, while the 2019 collection included three historical stories and three dystopian or fantastical stories, the 2023 features only modern, realistic settings (a few include hallucinations, but that happens in real life too). Disappointingly narrow for an anthology claiming to represent the best regardless of genre.
- But not domestic realism: Only a handful of stories deal much with marriage or parenting. Far more focus on cultural issues, on friendships, on community, on searches for identity and meaning.
While I’d personally have preferred a reduction of the first-person onslaught, and a bit more risk-taking and genre variation, the anthology did ultimately win me over—it helped that I liked the second half, overall, much better than those in the first.
Below are notes on the individual stories (what I always want from reviews of collections):
Tender by Cherline Bazile: An immigrant high school student struggles in her relationship with her best friend, mostly because she has declared herself the only one with a right to a bad home life. Unfortunately the anthology started out with a bit of a dud for me; this one is structurally plain, has too many characters in too few pages, and we never actually see this awful home life, either.
Do You Belong to Anybody? by Maya Binyam: Happily, I loved the second story, my favorite of the anthology. A man returns to his native Ethiopia after many years away, for initially unclear reasons, and it’s this absurdist tragicomedy, relayed in a voice I can best describe as “Murderbot with amnesia”—except the narrator doesn’t have amnesia, he just doesn’t feel like sharing. And is maybe neurodivergent, but certainly traumatized. I spent the whole story trying to figure out what was going on and then read it all over again once I did, which is exactly what I want from a short story. Turns out the author expanded it into a novel, which I plan to read.
His Finest Moment by Tom Bissell: A famous novelist and serial sexual harasser attempts to warn his teenage daughter before the story of his bad behavior breaks. I appreciate this story for its convincing development of a perspective from which I wouldn’t want to read a whole novel, but showing that perspective is basically all it does. Almost more snapshot than story.
Camp Emeline by Taryn Bowe: A family who lost their youngest child sets up a camp for disabled kids, as seen through the eyes of the teenage sister, who is struggling. Said sister gets involved with a 24-year-old camp employee, who’s also had a rough life, and this helps, I guess? As with the first story, I was underwhelmed—it’s structurally ordinary and didn’t make me feel.
Treasure Island Alley by Da-Lin: After the last two stories, the sheer ambition of this one was a breath of fresh air. It’s about the meaning of death, through both science and religion, and covers the entire long life of a Taiwanese-American woman through the prism of a single day when she was five. I’m not sure it entirely succeeds—perhaps because it’s only 13 pages long; when Ted Chiang did it he took four times that—but it’s certainly interesting.
The Master Mourner by Benjamin Ehrlich: Is this even a story? I’m afraid I don’t get it at all. Seven pages consisting mostly of descriptions of a couple of eccentric adults in an Orthodox Jewish boy’s community, followed by an out-of-nowhere epiphany and a deliberately vague ending.
The Company of Others by Sara Freeman: Each year, it seems, there’s one particular story that stands out for its combination of great writing and no imagination. While her husband and young daughter are away, a woman contemplates her ambivalence about parenting and her relationship with her own dead mother, and wonders if maybe she never should have married her husband at all. I wondered if maybe something would ever happen, but it didn’t.
Annunciation by Lauren Groff: Another young woman seeking her path, and things definitely happen in this one, as our narrator gets to know a couple of overlooked, eccentric women in her community—her elderly German immigrant landlady, and a coworker who is an evangelical van-dweller fleeing domestic violence. There is tragedy, and the narrator comes to understand her own mother better. Some strong character sketches, and it depicts the Bay Area with a vivid sense of place. It never quite popped for me though: the narrator and her story aren’t quite strong enough as the linchpin that must hold it all together, and the ending felt a bit weak and conventional.
The Mine by Nathan Harris: A South African man has risen to manage a mine, but there’s a tragedy and he feels haunted by visions locally understood to represent a guilty conscience. Unfortunately, this story just felt inauthentic to me. There’s no sense of place (and indeed, the author is American, with no mention of even visiting South Africa), everyone including the miners speaks formal American English, and the first-person voice likewise sounds like a college-educated American, whereas the narrator is supposed to have apprenticed in a mine from boyhood.
Bebo by Jared Jackson: All right, now this one brings the voice, as well as the sense of place. It’s a boys-in-the-hood story featuring young teens in the inner city, in which the narrator must confront his failings as a friend to a boy worse off than himself. I found this one very strong, though tragic and sometimes gross. At first it felt like the story was being a little hard on the narrator—the whole world has failed Bebo; what is another kid supposed to do about it?—but on reflection, isn’t that the purpose of friendship, to be there for someone even if you can’t make it better?
The Muddle by Sana Krasikov: This time the friends are two Ukrainian women in their 60s: one Jewish, a nonconformist, an immigrant to the U.S.; the other more of a follower, remaining in Ukraine with her Russian husband. When Russia invades, the U.S.-based woman tries to convince her friend to get out, and must ultimately confront the limits on what we can do about how those around us live their lives and what they choose to believe. A solid and timely story, and the conversations feel very realistic, though it’s missing that extra something for me, the characters a bit lacking in depth and the sense of lives lived.
My Brother William by Danica Li: This story has all the depth and feeling I was missing from the last one, following the relationship of an adult brother and sister over several decades of their lives. A beautiful, poignant story, that I think will touch anyone who has a sibling they don’t see often, and that really brings the leads to life despite being only 14 pages long. The real vs. virtual world musings didn’t add much for me, but I still thought it was great.
Peking Duck by Ling Ma: The one story in the collection to play with perspective, to use structure to illustrate its themes—this is a very artsy story, in other words, yet seems to be the most popular of the bunch. Featuring a Chinese-American writer who mines her immigrant mother’s experiences in her fiction, it asks questions about who really knows a story, who has the right to tell it. And it’s fascinatingly recursive: I think I liked it, in a complicated way; in any case, while some of the others feel chosen at random, this one clearly belongs in a best-of collection.
Compromisos by Manuel Muñoz: A gay Mexican-American father tries to reconcile with his family when his relationship with a man proves to have no future. This is… fine? Like several of the stories in this collection, it’s so restrained that its emotional impact was blunted for me. We never even meet the young daughter who seems to be the father’s primary reason to return. A visually vivid story, and an interesting perspective, but not memorable for me.
Grand Mal by Joanna Pearson: A literary crime story with an unreliable narrator: this one is good, and had me going back through it for clues once I’d finished. It’s also been turned into a novel, which I don’t plan to read because I don’t like murder mysteries, but I did like the story.
Trash by Souvankham Thammavongsa: A 6-page anecdote narrated by a naïve and sloppy 32-year-old grocery store cashier, about meeting her ambitious lawyer mother-in-law, who of course disapproves. From the contributor’s note, the author is impressed with her own story, but I can’t say the same; it all felt obvious, with some weird moments (who would wait 2 hours in a parking lot for someone’s shift to end rather than going elsewhere or coming in? Why does the narrator think she’s “worked her way up” at the grocery store when she’s still a cashier?).
Supernova by Kosiso Ugwueze: A depressed and recently suicidal young woman is kidnapped from a bus in Nigeria and held for ransom. I liked this one, particularly the Nigerian English and Isioma’s inability to muster the level of respect and fear her captors expect, all while still behaving believably. The growing rapport with the captors is interesting too. Of the stories that haven’t yet been turned into novels, this is the one I’d most like to see.
This Isn’t the Actual Sea by Corinna Vallianatos: A surprisingly good story about a friendship between two middle-aged artists, a writer and a filmmaker. I’m not sure I entirely understood it, but prefer a bit of artsiness over obviousness in a short story, and the portrayal of the friendship between the two women and the filmmaker’s relationship to her art felt very real.
It Is What It Is by Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi: A slightly bonkers story about two Iranian expat women—roommates, grad students—in Chicago, who both seem to be losing their minds. It’s the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and there’s a series of tragedies or near-misses affecting their homeland (see this review for a timeline). I liked it more than I didn’t. It really isn’t about the cat.
Moon by Esther Yi: An uptight young woman attends a K-pop concert and becomes completely obsessed with a member of the boy band. I didn’t really connect with this one, and thought it ended too soon: we’re still within days of the concert, too early to know whether this will actually change the narrator’s life forever or if it’s just a weird blip. The novel it turned into would no doubt answer the question but I’m not that interested.
At any rate, I’m glad I read the anthology in the end; the stories are well-written (though I had a chuckle at the “‘Coincidence,’ she emitted tersely” in the penultimate story!) with some variation in subject matter if not in genre, and it introduced me to a bunch of new authors.
EDIT: Well, I found out where all the experimental and genre-bending literary stories went this year! Check out The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners.
July 13, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of
The Best American Short Stories 2023.
I'm always wary of short story collections since the stories are gathered by the guest editor and this person will select stories based on their personal preferences, biases, and interests.
Every reader has different tastes and likes and dislikes when it comes to what they read.
All of the stories in this collection were well written with diverse characters written by diverse authors but not one story really captured my interest.
I'm always wary of short story collections since the stories are gathered by the guest editor and this person will select stories based on their personal preferences, biases, and interests.
Every reader has different tastes and likes and dislikes when it comes to what they read.
All of the stories in this collection were well written with diverse characters written by diverse authors but not one story really captured my interest.
June 8, 2024
finally done chipping away at this! unfortunately with any mix of short stories you’re gonna get some that are better than others 🤷♀️
March 17, 2024
WOW!!!!! I loved all these stories so so so much. Min Jin Lee did amazing as editor. Id say my favorite was Treasure Island Alley 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
November 3, 2023
devastated i didn’t get any new esther yi content
December 12, 2023
“Above all, the greatest stories illumine our darkest corners, allowing us to see ourselves because, finally, a candle and a mirror have been brought into an unlit room. Fiction is a light source in a world that tells us there is no daylight left.”
I gotta start with saying I am obsessed with the introduction to this collection-it so perfectly encapsulates the power of books and fiction at their best. And that’s what I felt I saw in the stories that followed-in them I saw glimpses of the nuances of humanity-both beautiful and terrible. There were sentences that captured thoughts, feelings, and experiences I’ve never put to words-and I just had to pause and absorb them. These weren’t all easy reads and they challenged me to think about what was really being said and I’ll have to revisit some…but I just appreciate this so much. They’re not “relatable” but these stories are so deeply human
I gotta start with saying I am obsessed with the introduction to this collection-it so perfectly encapsulates the power of books and fiction at their best. And that’s what I felt I saw in the stories that followed-in them I saw glimpses of the nuances of humanity-both beautiful and terrible. There were sentences that captured thoughts, feelings, and experiences I’ve never put to words-and I just had to pause and absorb them. These weren’t all easy reads and they challenged me to think about what was really being said and I’ll have to revisit some…but I just appreciate this so much. They’re not “relatable” but these stories are so deeply human
November 17, 2023
The world around us is burning to the ground, yet we're still telling the same, technically sound but societally safe, immigrant stories. Where's the outrage? The rebellion? The drawn blood?
December 22, 2023
My favorite edition since Roxane Gay’s in 2018
Favorite stories:
Tender
Camp Emeline
The Master Mourner
The Mine
The Muddle
Peking Duck
Compromisos
Trash
It is what it is (so beautiful, even though I didn’t entirely understand it)
Also loved Min Jin Lee’s intro.
Favorite stories:
Tender
Camp Emeline
The Master Mourner
The Mine
The Muddle
Peking Duck
Compromisos
Trash
It is what it is (so beautiful, even though I didn’t entirely understand it)
Also loved Min Jin Lee’s intro.
January 15, 2025
This was a weird year for me. My thoughts about the stories in the collection were more complex, which is probably a good thing. Though I also argued with them more, too.
I also found Heidi Pitlor’s introduction this year, comparing first and second person narration and tying it to looking for connection in ultra-individual, capitalistic society, to be a little bit tepid. Ah well. Maybe 2024 will speak to me more.
As for guest editor Min Jin Lee, she wrote a long intro to her reading and writing life, very becoming for a modern Victorian-style novelist. :P I’ve not read Lee’s short fiction, but I applaud her focus on the “little guy” honorable mention stories, and the shoe-string publications which give so many writers (yours truly included) their starts. Usually only the big wig litmags make it into the top 20 stories, but check out the back of the book!
Anywho. In chronological order, here are the stories that stuck out most to me.
“His Finest Moment” by Tom Bissell (Zyzzva). There’s something so irritating about this story for how obvious it is—man sexually assaults someone, man faces consequences, goes into a “poor me” routine with only the slightest attempt at trying to understand the situation. Which makes me think, how many acclaimed male authors are actually so obtuse about the reasons behind their behavior, and also the true interiority of the (usually) women they force themselves on? A reminder that literary fiction writers aren’t always as empathetic in real life as the studies say. And I have to think that dudebro writers, with their emotion-allergic novels, are the most obvious examples of that.
“Camp Emeline” by Taryn Bowe (Indiana Review). In this tale about a family who lost someone, and uses the medical malpractice lawsuit money to open up a camp for disabled kids, a young woman makes an unusual connection with a drifting older guy. There’s a nice and long build up of the world at play, a poignant tale of loss and looking for connection in strange climes with similarly broken people.
“The Master Mourner” by Benjamin Ehrlich (The Gettysburg Review). Gravitating towards the ultra-Jewish stories. /bias It’s a modern Orthodox American setting about a young boy’s uncomfortable response to a Holocaust survivor who acts as an official mourner in the community. The ending is a little abrupt, not quite sure what to make of it. Maybe it’s a reminder that even Holocaust trauma can’t change Bernie Bernstein’s slight creepiness. For the protagonist’s mourning father, Bernstein is this character who allows him to stay in the in-between stage of grief. For our main character, a young boy to teenager, Bernstein’s presence makes him even more alone.
“Annunciation” by Lauren Groff (The New Yorker.) Such an unsettling story about a young girl who feels cast off by her family, taking a temp job that puts her in contact with so much personal and systemic brokenness, her traumatized land lady who removed the vocal chords from her dog who was later sent to the pound, and a traumatized co-worker caught in the crosshairs of the protagonist’s youthful self-righteousness. If there’s any feral struggling with gods to admire, to twist something from the story, it’s in the narrator’s ability to live cheaply and romanticize her first home away from home. Something that may stick out to others, like me, dealing with financial insecurity.
“The Muddle” by Sana Krasikov (The New Yorker.) Mixed feelings because there’s a lot going on in this story—significant backstory is in play to explain the relationship between Shura and Alonya. There’s a lot of hyper-specific Soviet references as well—cultural identities ranging from Jewish, ethnic Ukrainian and Russian. Shura the Jew relocated to the Americas and Alonya the ethnic Ukrainian married to a Russian, have very different opinions on the current Russia/Ukraine war. They also go back and forth, criticizing western ideas. The disagreements grow more fraught during the war, when peoples’ lives are on the line. It’s been awhile since I’ve read Sana Krasikov, who has always focused on this area and these identities. I’m interested to read any upcoming work.
“My Brother William” by Danica Li (The Iowa Review). The protagonist tracks her enigmatic relationship with her brother on and off for several decades. There’s a lot of passive voice, unsurprisingly, given the time span. But I found myself intrigued by the central relationship, and contemporary questions asked about the nature of reality, physical and virtual.
“Compromisos” by Manuel Munoz (Electric Literature.) A man grapples with his sexuality and how he perceives his family obligations. All relationships have baggage in this deftly told story, which ends with the protagonist witnessing the dynamics between his straight, teenage son and a girlfriend.
“Supernova” by Kosiso Ugwueze (New England Review). More mixed feelings. The author spoke in contributor notes about wanting to capture someone who didn’t react to stress in understandable ways. If there’s any rational explanation, it seems like Isioma, who is captured by militants looking for ransom and barely reacts to this state of events, has a psychiatric condition that her family, friends and therapist don’t want to see. Does that mean it’s difficult for me to feel for Isioma when her numbness doesn’t come from nurture events like the kidnapping or her parents’ abandonment? Maybe. There’s two stories here, one about Nigeria and one about the character. But the character is a closed book. Maybe she should be allowed that courtesy, but yeesh. It’s a tough sell for a character reader! :P
“It Is What It Is” by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi (Electric Literature.) The cat lover in me is a little annoyed that this isn’t a more realistic story about adopting a cat whose family suddenly died. The cat is a device though some of her behaviors mirror reality. I suppose this is an allegory for the rest of the story, too. Some of the trauma: the pandemic, the backstory about lost family in Iran, feel rooted in reality, though internally/emotionally conveyed. Other aspects, like the rending of the world in the bathroom and at the lake, are more metaphorical. But by this point, the hyperbolic nature of the story is set, and the themes of loss and longing for a vanished home are very poignant.
“Moon” by Esther Yi (The Paris Review). The first chapter of a book, and it feels incomplete on its own. Still, I like the uncomfortable look into obsession—and how the doctored performances of celebrities, online and off, lead to fake feelings of intimacy. The nonsensical dialogue of the boy band in question is off putting, unless you’re deep into the obsession like the protagonist is, I guess! :P
I also found Heidi Pitlor’s introduction this year, comparing first and second person narration and tying it to looking for connection in ultra-individual, capitalistic society, to be a little bit tepid. Ah well. Maybe 2024 will speak to me more.
As for guest editor Min Jin Lee, she wrote a long intro to her reading and writing life, very becoming for a modern Victorian-style novelist. :P I’ve not read Lee’s short fiction, but I applaud her focus on the “little guy” honorable mention stories, and the shoe-string publications which give so many writers (yours truly included) their starts. Usually only the big wig litmags make it into the top 20 stories, but check out the back of the book!
Anywho. In chronological order, here are the stories that stuck out most to me.
“His Finest Moment” by Tom Bissell (Zyzzva). There’s something so irritating about this story for how obvious it is—man sexually assaults someone, man faces consequences, goes into a “poor me” routine with only the slightest attempt at trying to understand the situation. Which makes me think, how many acclaimed male authors are actually so obtuse about the reasons behind their behavior, and also the true interiority of the (usually) women they force themselves on? A reminder that literary fiction writers aren’t always as empathetic in real life as the studies say. And I have to think that dudebro writers, with their emotion-allergic novels, are the most obvious examples of that.
“Camp Emeline” by Taryn Bowe (Indiana Review). In this tale about a family who lost someone, and uses the medical malpractice lawsuit money to open up a camp for disabled kids, a young woman makes an unusual connection with a drifting older guy. There’s a nice and long build up of the world at play, a poignant tale of loss and looking for connection in strange climes with similarly broken people.
“The Master Mourner” by Benjamin Ehrlich (The Gettysburg Review). Gravitating towards the ultra-Jewish stories. /bias It’s a modern Orthodox American setting about a young boy’s uncomfortable response to a Holocaust survivor who acts as an official mourner in the community. The ending is a little abrupt, not quite sure what to make of it. Maybe it’s a reminder that even Holocaust trauma can’t change Bernie Bernstein’s slight creepiness. For the protagonist’s mourning father, Bernstein is this character who allows him to stay in the in-between stage of grief. For our main character, a young boy to teenager, Bernstein’s presence makes him even more alone.
“Annunciation” by Lauren Groff (The New Yorker.) Such an unsettling story about a young girl who feels cast off by her family, taking a temp job that puts her in contact with so much personal and systemic brokenness, her traumatized land lady who removed the vocal chords from her dog who was later sent to the pound, and a traumatized co-worker caught in the crosshairs of the protagonist’s youthful self-righteousness. If there’s any feral struggling with gods to admire, to twist something from the story, it’s in the narrator’s ability to live cheaply and romanticize her first home away from home. Something that may stick out to others, like me, dealing with financial insecurity.
“The Muddle” by Sana Krasikov (The New Yorker.) Mixed feelings because there’s a lot going on in this story—significant backstory is in play to explain the relationship between Shura and Alonya. There’s a lot of hyper-specific Soviet references as well—cultural identities ranging from Jewish, ethnic Ukrainian and Russian. Shura the Jew relocated to the Americas and Alonya the ethnic Ukrainian married to a Russian, have very different opinions on the current Russia/Ukraine war. They also go back and forth, criticizing western ideas. The disagreements grow more fraught during the war, when peoples’ lives are on the line. It’s been awhile since I’ve read Sana Krasikov, who has always focused on this area and these identities. I’m interested to read any upcoming work.
“My Brother William” by Danica Li (The Iowa Review). The protagonist tracks her enigmatic relationship with her brother on and off for several decades. There’s a lot of passive voice, unsurprisingly, given the time span. But I found myself intrigued by the central relationship, and contemporary questions asked about the nature of reality, physical and virtual.
“Compromisos” by Manuel Munoz (Electric Literature.) A man grapples with his sexuality and how he perceives his family obligations. All relationships have baggage in this deftly told story, which ends with the protagonist witnessing the dynamics between his straight, teenage son and a girlfriend.
“Supernova” by Kosiso Ugwueze (New England Review). More mixed feelings. The author spoke in contributor notes about wanting to capture someone who didn’t react to stress in understandable ways. If there’s any rational explanation, it seems like Isioma, who is captured by militants looking for ransom and barely reacts to this state of events, has a psychiatric condition that her family, friends and therapist don’t want to see. Does that mean it’s difficult for me to feel for Isioma when her numbness doesn’t come from nurture events like the kidnapping or her parents’ abandonment? Maybe. There’s two stories here, one about Nigeria and one about the character. But the character is a closed book. Maybe she should be allowed that courtesy, but yeesh. It’s a tough sell for a character reader! :P
“It Is What It Is” by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi (Electric Literature.) The cat lover in me is a little annoyed that this isn’t a more realistic story about adopting a cat whose family suddenly died. The cat is a device though some of her behaviors mirror reality. I suppose this is an allegory for the rest of the story, too. Some of the trauma: the pandemic, the backstory about lost family in Iran, feel rooted in reality, though internally/emotionally conveyed. Other aspects, like the rending of the world in the bathroom and at the lake, are more metaphorical. But by this point, the hyperbolic nature of the story is set, and the themes of loss and longing for a vanished home are very poignant.
“Moon” by Esther Yi (The Paris Review). The first chapter of a book, and it feels incomplete on its own. Still, I like the uncomfortable look into obsession—and how the doctored performances of celebrities, online and off, lead to fake feelings of intimacy. The nonsensical dialogue of the boy band in question is off putting, unless you’re deep into the obsession like the protagonist is, I guess! :P
April 18, 2024
Nothing is more challenging and invigorating as a writer than reading published works that are completely different from one another and much better than your own projects lol. It sounds awesome to be able to read the yearly changes in American short form lit through this series, and I think going forward I’m gonna make it a point to be a tradition for me. Great and compelling stories from beginning to end, and you never know what to expect other than an engrossing narrative.
4.5/5.
4.5/5.
December 31, 2024
This was a very enjoyable and eclectic collection. I didn't vibe with every story, but a few I absolutely loved. I appreciated the diversity of voices and settings. Lots of Asian authors and some African and Middle Eastern authors as well. I find these types of anthologies very rewarding in the way they expose you to things you otherwise would never read.
November 13, 2023
the way these tore me apart so beautifully.. no notes, no comments. it was an immaculate collection
March 21, 2024
Closer to 3.5 stars.
While there were several standout contributions to this collection (listed below), there were a few that simply didn't rise to the level of a best story. In a couple of cases, the stories felt like they might still be in need of more polishing and development. Furthermore, it is one of my biggest pet peeves that chapters of novels are treated as short stories, even if the writing is excellent. The short story as its own artform should be celebrated and knowing that a "story" is a chapter of a novel removes the context that situates it into a greater work.
Best stories from 2023:
The Master Mourner, Benjamin Erlich
The Company of Others, Sara Freeman
Annunciation, Lauren Groff
The Mine, Nathan Harris
The Muddle, Sana Krasikov
Peking Duck, Ling Ma
Supernova, Kosiso Ugwueze
It Is What It Is, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloom (my favorite)
While there were several standout contributions to this collection (listed below), there were a few that simply didn't rise to the level of a best story. In a couple of cases, the stories felt like they might still be in need of more polishing and development. Furthermore, it is one of my biggest pet peeves that chapters of novels are treated as short stories, even if the writing is excellent. The short story as its own artform should be celebrated and knowing that a "story" is a chapter of a novel removes the context that situates it into a greater work.
Best stories from 2023:
The Master Mourner, Benjamin Erlich
The Company of Others, Sara Freeman
Annunciation, Lauren Groff
The Mine, Nathan Harris
The Muddle, Sana Krasikov
Peking Duck, Ling Ma
Supernova, Kosiso Ugwueze
It Is What It Is, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloom (my favorite)
March 31, 2025
I enjoyed reading this far more than I expected to! I woke up this morning and all I wanted to do was get back to this, and so I’ve spent four hours straight finishing the stories. they weren’t all my favorites, but the ones i liked I really liked. It’s so interesting to think about how little a short story can really be about to still be interesting and profound and worth reading. Loved the introductions and author’s notes as well
favorites were Cherline Bazile’s “Tender,” Taryn Bowe’s “Camp Emiline,” Sara Freeman’s “The Company of Others,” Jared Jackson’s “Bebo,” Ling Ma’s “Peking Duck” (which I have read before! and liked much more the second time around!), Joanna Pesrson’s “Grand Mal,” and Kosiso Ugwueze’s “Supernova”
favorites were Cherline Bazile’s “Tender,” Taryn Bowe’s “Camp Emiline,” Sara Freeman’s “The Company of Others,” Jared Jackson’s “Bebo,” Ling Ma’s “Peking Duck” (which I have read before! and liked much more the second time around!), Joanna Pesrson’s “Grand Mal,” and Kosiso Ugwueze’s “Supernova”
February 12, 2024
I really enjoy this storytelling format. It's a talent to introduce conflict and then resolution within a few hundred pages. Two standouts were: Ling Ma's, Peking Duck and Kosiso Ugwueze's Supernova. The women in these stories didn't behave typically as we have expected women to throughout history.
December 13, 2024
favorites:
Camp Emeline by Taryn Bowe
Treasure Island Alley by Da-Lin
Annunciation by Lauren Groff
My Brother William by Danica Li
Supernova by Kosovo Ugwueze
No, not every story was my favorite, but it’s good to use your brain & exercise critical thinking sometimes. I’m also super happy to have some new authors to look out for after this bc that’s what my aim was!
Camp Emeline by Taryn Bowe
Treasure Island Alley by Da-Lin
Annunciation by Lauren Groff
My Brother William by Danica Li
Supernova by Kosovo Ugwueze
No, not every story was my favorite, but it’s good to use your brain & exercise critical thinking sometimes. I’m also super happy to have some new authors to look out for after this bc that’s what my aim was!
October 28, 2023
I read this collection every year and found this one particularly strong. Just solidly good stories.
September 26, 2024
I’ve been slowly getting through this collection since January, reading two stories per week, and I’m all finished. This is my first time reading any of the “Best American” book series, and it’s definitely a very well-crafted collection.
(If you don’t know, Heidi Pitlor reads thousands of short stories published in the US and Canada every year and, along with a guest editor, compiles the best 20 to put in the collection. The stories are usually chosen to the taste of the guest editor, and this past year’s it was author Min Jin Lee.)
It’s strange because, as much as I enjoyed the idea of this collection, and also several stories, there are quite a few that I also didn’t really enjoy at all. (My ratings for each one are at the end of this review.)
It’s tricky to pin point specificities when it comes to a collection of stories written by different authors, but what I can say is that they were all contemporary, some on the weirder side, and there was the common theme (not in all of them) of motherhood and identity.
Stories like Camp Emeline by Taryn Bowe, Peking Duck by Ling Ma, and Annunciation by Lauren Groff were only some of my favorites to read, and I’ve marked quotes that I’ll definitely come back to. A collection like this one also grants a great opportunity to find new favorite authors who have published novels that may be appealing to read, which is fabulous.
Of course, like I said earlier, I wasn’t a big fan of other stories. Some felt too straightforward/unspecific, some lacked a sense of direction, and others that felt like they wanted to be a novel but, instead, were condensed into a story (a trend I highly dislike in short stories). Because of this I’ve rated the collection 3 stars on its overall quality, even though it does have many great pieces regardless.
Overall, this was a highly interesting bundle to get through and it honestly helped me view short stories in a different, better light. I felt compelled to pick up more magazines and literary journals and read contemporary stories instead of always sticking to older, more well-known ones. This “Best American” collection is definitely one of the most effective ways to read what is considered the best of the best in modern literature, in North America, when it comes to shorter narratives.
My rating for each short story in this 2023 collection:
Tender by Cherline Bazile - 3/5
Do You Belong to Anyone? by Maya Binyam - 1/5
His Finest Moment by Tom Bissell - 5/5
Camp Emeline by Taryn Bowe - 5/5
Treasure Island Alley by Da-Lin - 2/5
The Master Mourner by Benjamin Ehrlich - 2/5
The Company of Others by Sara Freeman - 3/5
Annunciation by Lauren Groff - 5/5
The Mine by Nathan Harris - 2/5
Bebo by Jared Jackson - 3/5
The Muddle by Sana Krasikov - 1/5
My Brother William by Danica Li - 2/5
Peking Duck by Ling Ma - 5/5
Compromisos by Manuel Muñoz - 4/5
Grand Mal by Joanna Pearson - 4/5
Trash by Souvankham Thammavongsa - 2/5
Supernova by Kosiso Ugwueze - 3/5
This Isn’t the Actual Sea by Corinna Vallianatos - 3/5
It Is What It Is by Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi - 1/5
Moon by Esther Yi - 3/5
(If you don’t know, Heidi Pitlor reads thousands of short stories published in the US and Canada every year and, along with a guest editor, compiles the best 20 to put in the collection. The stories are usually chosen to the taste of the guest editor, and this past year’s it was author Min Jin Lee.)
It’s strange because, as much as I enjoyed the idea of this collection, and also several stories, there are quite a few that I also didn’t really enjoy at all. (My ratings for each one are at the end of this review.)
It’s tricky to pin point specificities when it comes to a collection of stories written by different authors, but what I can say is that they were all contemporary, some on the weirder side, and there was the common theme (not in all of them) of motherhood and identity.
Stories like Camp Emeline by Taryn Bowe, Peking Duck by Ling Ma, and Annunciation by Lauren Groff were only some of my favorites to read, and I’ve marked quotes that I’ll definitely come back to. A collection like this one also grants a great opportunity to find new favorite authors who have published novels that may be appealing to read, which is fabulous.
Of course, like I said earlier, I wasn’t a big fan of other stories. Some felt too straightforward/unspecific, some lacked a sense of direction, and others that felt like they wanted to be a novel but, instead, were condensed into a story (a trend I highly dislike in short stories). Because of this I’ve rated the collection 3 stars on its overall quality, even though it does have many great pieces regardless.
Overall, this was a highly interesting bundle to get through and it honestly helped me view short stories in a different, better light. I felt compelled to pick up more magazines and literary journals and read contemporary stories instead of always sticking to older, more well-known ones. This “Best American” collection is definitely one of the most effective ways to read what is considered the best of the best in modern literature, in North America, when it comes to shorter narratives.
My rating for each short story in this 2023 collection:
Tender by Cherline Bazile - 3/5
Do You Belong to Anyone? by Maya Binyam - 1/5
His Finest Moment by Tom Bissell - 5/5
Camp Emeline by Taryn Bowe - 5/5
Treasure Island Alley by Da-Lin - 2/5
The Master Mourner by Benjamin Ehrlich - 2/5
The Company of Others by Sara Freeman - 3/5
Annunciation by Lauren Groff - 5/5
The Mine by Nathan Harris - 2/5
Bebo by Jared Jackson - 3/5
The Muddle by Sana Krasikov - 1/5
My Brother William by Danica Li - 2/5
Peking Duck by Ling Ma - 5/5
Compromisos by Manuel Muñoz - 4/5
Grand Mal by Joanna Pearson - 4/5
Trash by Souvankham Thammavongsa - 2/5
Supernova by Kosiso Ugwueze - 3/5
This Isn’t the Actual Sea by Corinna Vallianatos - 3/5
It Is What It Is by Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi - 1/5
Moon by Esther Yi - 3/5
May 9, 2024
Favorites:
Camp Emeline by Taryn Bow from Indiana Review
Treasure Island Alley by Da-Lin from New England Review
The Company of Others by Sara Freeman from The Sewanee Review
Annunciation by Lauren Groff from the New Yorker (!!)
Peking Duck by Ling Ma from the New Yorker (!!)
Grand Mal by Joanna Pearson from Kenyon Review (!)
Moon by Esther Yi from The Paris Review (!)
Slowly becoming obsessed with Lauren Groff, she has a way of condensing a novel length plot into a short story without leaving the reading stuffed and sluggish. It’s in the judiciousness of the details.
Peking Duck was one of the best short stories I’ve ever read. Ling Ma’s mastery with form and a story within a story within a story is where the future of storytelling is located. #AI could never!!!
Camp Emeline by Taryn Bow from Indiana Review
Treasure Island Alley by Da-Lin from New England Review
The Company of Others by Sara Freeman from The Sewanee Review
Annunciation by Lauren Groff from the New Yorker (!!)
Peking Duck by Ling Ma from the New Yorker (!!)
Grand Mal by Joanna Pearson from Kenyon Review (!)
Moon by Esther Yi from The Paris Review (!)
Slowly becoming obsessed with Lauren Groff, she has a way of condensing a novel length plot into a short story without leaving the reading stuffed and sluggish. It’s in the judiciousness of the details.
Peking Duck was one of the best short stories I’ve ever read. Ling Ma’s mastery with form and a story within a story within a story is where the future of storytelling is located. #AI could never!!!
March 27, 2025
I found this book inspiring, especially for authors looking to get their short stories published. While it was fiction, the stories felt incredibly realistic—like scenarios that could truly happen. The ones that captured my attention the most were those with fantastical elements, like seeing ghosts. This made me realize that, at heart, I’m a devoted fantasy fiction lover, which is why the highly realistic stories weren’t as enjoyable for me. However, I’m glad I stepped outside my comfort zone and explored a different genre.
May 27, 2024
Great Short Stories Anthology…. Yet Again
I’ve read this almost every year since 1998 and this is one of the best. Min Jin Lee picked a lot of “modern” stories with modern issues and intriguing characters. Sometimes the editor goes crazy with the same themes over and over again but I feel Lee has put together a fine mix of short stories. Hope it is as good next year!
I’ve read this almost every year since 1998 and this is one of the best. Min Jin Lee picked a lot of “modern” stories with modern issues and intriguing characters. Sometimes the editor goes crazy with the same themes over and over again but I feel Lee has put together a fine mix of short stories. Hope it is as good next year!
January 10, 2024
idk maybe i just don’t get “literary fiction”, some of these stories were good but some were kinda just meandering all over the place. it seems like the only way to be taken seriously as a writer is to write lukewarm ambivalent prose that doesn’t make any statements or come to any conclusions and then just end your story on some absolute random note because that makes it “open ended”.
regardless, some of these stories were really good and had interesting and moving characters - but they all lacked STYLE there was nothing sexy about any of these stories (except maybe Peking Duck)
Introduction, Min Jin Lee -
“Without stories, we cannot live well.”
Treasure Island Alley, Da-Lin -
“Perhaps the truth is this: that past and future are concepts the mind makes up to take refuge from the present.”
Compromisos, Manuel Muñoz -
“But wasn't it always so easy to spot someone pulled helplessly along by who they really were?”
regardless, some of these stories were really good and had interesting and moving characters - but they all lacked STYLE there was nothing sexy about any of these stories (except maybe Peking Duck)
Introduction, Min Jin Lee -
“Without stories, we cannot live well.”
Treasure Island Alley, Da-Lin -
“Perhaps the truth is this: that past and future are concepts the mind makes up to take refuge from the present.”
Compromisos, Manuel Muñoz -
“But wasn't it always so easy to spot someone pulled helplessly along by who they really were?”
December 15, 2024
Thank you Min Jin Lee for a beautiful collection of stories! Even better that I got to read them all with Chiara :) our favorites were:
Tender
His Finest Moment
Treasure Island Alley
The Company of Others
Annunciation (favorite by far)
Peking Duck
Compromisos
Grand Mal
Tender
His Finest Moment
Treasure Island Alley
The Company of Others
Annunciation (favorite by far)
Peking Duck
Compromisos
Grand Mal
January 12, 2024
closer to 3.5 stars but there were some stand out ones that bumped my rating up
May 26, 2024
A nice selection of stories. My favs were:
His Finest Moment
My Brother William
Compromisos
His Finest Moment
My Brother William
Compromisos
September 25, 2024
Favorite stories:
"His Finest Moment" - Tom Bissell
"Annunciation" - Lauren Groff
"The Mine" - Nathan Harris
"Grand Mal" - Joanna Pearson
"Moon" - Esther Yi
"His Finest Moment" - Tom Bissell
"Annunciation" - Lauren Groff
"The Mine" - Nathan Harris
"Grand Mal" - Joanna Pearson
"Moon" - Esther Yi
December 4, 2024
every story in this anthology should be read! so good and so impactful! some made me cry and others made me want to run around screaming on the streets
December 17, 2024
I finally finished this collection, which I decided to read with my lovely writing partner and dear friend Elizabeth as inspiration for own writing. It was not my favorite collection of all time. There were a few stories that stood out: "Do You Belong to Anybody?" "Treasure Island Alley," "Annunciation," and "This Isn't the Actual Sea." The rest didn't capture me. Elizabeth, thoughts?
September 28, 2024
Being s fan of short stories I try to read each edition of the BASS series. The 2023 edition is one of the best ones I've read.
Min Jin Lee’s introduction was in the form of an interesting story of her own. She relates her family’s journey from Korea to the U.S. where she spent her childhood in the library reading. She also explains that the writing world is extremely different and much more difficult than it had been in the past. Very few good writers can make a living at it and must rely on other jobs to support themselves. She says that writing a short story is also much harder than a full-length novel where you have the luxury of getting to the plot in a much more relaxed way. She came into short stories by reading her first BASS from 1989 edited by Margaret Atwood.
She also writes about how some people say they only read non-fiction pronouncing that “fiction is less relevant”. “For those of us who love fiction, we are being gaslighted by a larger world that has lost its meaning and broken its order. We readers and writers know stories save, enlighten, and edify. Without stories, we cannot live well. Each of us would exist dimly, not understanding the value of our brightest moments.” Perfectly said!
I found it intriguing when reading the author's notes that several authors talk about how long the story took to come to fruition. Lots of them put the story aside sometimes for years before they return to it and manage to put it all together. In my opinion, a short story would be a much more difficult craft because the author has to condense the narrative into something riveting in far fewer words.
Another thing that stood out for me was the diversity of the authors in this edition, many born in far distant countries from the U.S. and their stories taking place in those countries.
Only a couple of the stories did not work for me.
These were my favorites:
The Company of Others by Sara Freeman – This was the third story in a row where the mother dies like in all the early Disney movies. A woman questions her commitment to her marriage and motherhood. The narrative was terrific.
Annunciation by Lauren Groff – A young woman’s quest for independence leads to loneliness. When she attempts friendships, she fails. I’ve read Lauren Groff in previous BASS editions and felt that they could easily have been expanded into novels. Fantastic storytelling.
Bebo by Jared Jackson – When a story takes place in a location you are familiar with, I think it tends to draw you in more. Being familiar with the streets and neighborhood of this story it was relatable. It is one of those city areas that changed over the decades because of the loss of manufacturing jobs and people migrating to further suburbs. You cannot help but feel sorrow for the future of the youth left behind.
The Muddle by Sana Krasikov – Lifelong friends from Ukraine try to stay connected despite finding that their views of history and current conflicts are very different from each other.
My Brother William by Danica Li – I have to admit that I made an assumption about the main character. Even after a couple of paragraphs, I thought the narrator was male. Not that it should matter. The point of the story was supposed to be about the brother and sister relationship the ups and downs of their lives and how in the end they can only rely on each other.
Peking Duck by Ling Ma – An immigrant story and a mother-daughter story. A woman finds her dignity. She recalls how happy she had been when she found out she was going to have a daughter, someone who was finally going to understand her.
Compromises by Manuel Munoz – A sad story about going through life denying who you are.
Grand Mal by Joanna Pearson – A story with an open ending. Did Joy kill her friend and not remember? Did she really have a seizure in front of her ex-husband's house when she got caught stalking him?
Trash by Souvankham Thammavongsa - I loved this last paragraph: She goes out to sit on the back porch and is approached by a raccoon. It touches her face and then turns around and walks away. The girl says: “I don’t know what it thought I was, exactly, what it might have mistaken me for, out there, all alone. I wasn’t trash.”
Supernova by Kosiso Ugwueze – A young Nigerian woman who had been raised by an aunt because her mother was not ready to raise a child at that point in her life tries to commit suicide. Her mother comes to get her and after a while, they have a falling out. The girl gets on a bus to go home but is kidnapped. Spending weeks in the bush with her captors having no luck getting a ransom they say “you must have been a problem child” and are ready to let her go. This was a tragic comic scene.
Min Jin Lee’s introduction was in the form of an interesting story of her own. She relates her family’s journey from Korea to the U.S. where she spent her childhood in the library reading. She also explains that the writing world is extremely different and much more difficult than it had been in the past. Very few good writers can make a living at it and must rely on other jobs to support themselves. She says that writing a short story is also much harder than a full-length novel where you have the luxury of getting to the plot in a much more relaxed way. She came into short stories by reading her first BASS from 1989 edited by Margaret Atwood.
She also writes about how some people say they only read non-fiction pronouncing that “fiction is less relevant”. “For those of us who love fiction, we are being gaslighted by a larger world that has lost its meaning and broken its order. We readers and writers know stories save, enlighten, and edify. Without stories, we cannot live well. Each of us would exist dimly, not understanding the value of our brightest moments.” Perfectly said!
I found it intriguing when reading the author's notes that several authors talk about how long the story took to come to fruition. Lots of them put the story aside sometimes for years before they return to it and manage to put it all together. In my opinion, a short story would be a much more difficult craft because the author has to condense the narrative into something riveting in far fewer words.
Another thing that stood out for me was the diversity of the authors in this edition, many born in far distant countries from the U.S. and their stories taking place in those countries.
Only a couple of the stories did not work for me.
These were my favorites:
The Company of Others by Sara Freeman – This was the third story in a row where the mother dies like in all the early Disney movies. A woman questions her commitment to her marriage and motherhood. The narrative was terrific.
Annunciation by Lauren Groff – A young woman’s quest for independence leads to loneliness. When she attempts friendships, she fails. I’ve read Lauren Groff in previous BASS editions and felt that they could easily have been expanded into novels. Fantastic storytelling.
Bebo by Jared Jackson – When a story takes place in a location you are familiar with, I think it tends to draw you in more. Being familiar with the streets and neighborhood of this story it was relatable. It is one of those city areas that changed over the decades because of the loss of manufacturing jobs and people migrating to further suburbs. You cannot help but feel sorrow for the future of the youth left behind.
The Muddle by Sana Krasikov – Lifelong friends from Ukraine try to stay connected despite finding that their views of history and current conflicts are very different from each other.
My Brother William by Danica Li – I have to admit that I made an assumption about the main character. Even after a couple of paragraphs, I thought the narrator was male. Not that it should matter. The point of the story was supposed to be about the brother and sister relationship the ups and downs of their lives and how in the end they can only rely on each other.
Peking Duck by Ling Ma – An immigrant story and a mother-daughter story. A woman finds her dignity. She recalls how happy she had been when she found out she was going to have a daughter, someone who was finally going to understand her.
Compromises by Manuel Munoz – A sad story about going through life denying who you are.
Grand Mal by Joanna Pearson – A story with an open ending. Did Joy kill her friend and not remember? Did she really have a seizure in front of her ex-husband's house when she got caught stalking him?
Trash by Souvankham Thammavongsa - I loved this last paragraph: She goes out to sit on the back porch and is approached by a raccoon. It touches her face and then turns around and walks away. The girl says: “I don’t know what it thought I was, exactly, what it might have mistaken me for, out there, all alone. I wasn’t trash.”
Supernova by Kosiso Ugwueze – A young Nigerian woman who had been raised by an aunt because her mother was not ready to raise a child at that point in her life tries to commit suicide. Her mother comes to get her and after a while, they have a falling out. The girl gets on a bus to go home but is kidnapped. Spending weeks in the bush with her captors having no luck getting a ransom they say “you must have been a problem child” and are ready to let her go. This was a tragic comic scene.
January 16, 2024
Difficult to review a book of short stories with no common thread. Some resonated with me, others didn’t. I gravitated to stories that were more stream of consciousness and didn’t need a hauntingly tramautic event to be successful.
Some of my favorite sentences:
A son, at best, will adore his mother, a daughter will understand her
Both scenarios were terrible to her. Being ignored would confirm her invisibility, while being reviewed would dissect her presence (on being someone that creates)
Shoutout to My Brother William, Peking Duck, and The Company of Others for being my favorite stories
*Gift from Allison
Some of my favorite sentences:
A son, at best, will adore his mother, a daughter will understand her
Both scenarios were terrible to her. Being ignored would confirm her invisibility, while being reviewed would dissect her presence (on being someone that creates)
Shoutout to My Brother William, Peking Duck, and The Company of Others for being my favorite stories
*Gift from Allison
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