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The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories
“In twenty-nine separate but ingenious ways, these stories seek permanent residence within a reader. They strive to become an emotional or intellectual cargo that might accompany us wherever, or however, we go. . . . If we are made by what we read, if language truly builds people into what they are, how they think, the depth with which they feel, then these stories are, to me, premium material for that construction project. You could build a civilization with them.” —Ben Marcus, from the Introduction
Award-winning author of Notable American Women Ben Marcus brings us this engaging and comprehensive collection of short stories that explore the stylistic variety of the medium in America today.
Sea Oak by George Saunders
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
Do Not Disturb by A.M. Homes
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender
The Caretaker by Anthony Doerr
The Old Dictionary by Lydia Davis
The Father’s Blessing by Mary Caponegro
The Life and Work of Alphonse Kauders by Aleksandar Hemon
People Shouldn’t Have to be the Ones to Tell You by Gary Lutz
Histories of the Undead by Kate Braverman
When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine by Jhumpa Lahiri
Down the Road by Stephen Dixon
X Number of Possibilities by Joanna Scott
Tiny, Smiling Daddy by Mary Gaitskill
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
The Sound Gun by Matthew Derby
Short Talks by Anne Carson
Field Events by Rick Bass
Scarliotti and the Sinkhole by Padgett Powell
Award-winning author of Notable American Women Ben Marcus brings us this engaging and comprehensive collection of short stories that explore the stylistic variety of the medium in America today.
Sea Oak by George Saunders
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
Do Not Disturb by A.M. Homes
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender
The Caretaker by Anthony Doerr
The Old Dictionary by Lydia Davis
The Father’s Blessing by Mary Caponegro
The Life and Work of Alphonse Kauders by Aleksandar Hemon
People Shouldn’t Have to be the Ones to Tell You by Gary Lutz
Histories of the Undead by Kate Braverman
When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine by Jhumpa Lahiri
Down the Road by Stephen Dixon
X Number of Possibilities by Joanna Scott
Tiny, Smiling Daddy by Mary Gaitskill
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
The Sound Gun by Matthew Derby
Short Talks by Anne Carson
Field Events by Rick Bass
Scarliotti and the Sinkhole by Padgett Powell
496 pages, Paperback
First published August 10, 2004
87 people are currently reading
1040 people want to read
About the author
Ben Marcus
67 books479 followersSeemingly the most conspicuous aspect of Ben Marcus' work, to date, is its expansion on one of the most primary concerns of the original Surrealist authors -- perhaps most typified by Benjamin Péret, husband of the acclaimed painter Remedios Varo -- this being a very deep interest in the psychological service and implication of symbols and the manners by which those symbols can be maneuvered and rejuxtaposed in order to provoke new ideas or new points of view -- in other words, the creation of, in a sense, conscious dreams.
While Marcus' writing plays similarly with the meanings of words by either stripping them of their intended meaning or juxtaposing them with other words in critical ways, it also abandons the 'experimental' nature of so much of the Surrealists' writing for stories that describe human psychology and the human condition through a means that has in later years become notably more subjective and sensory in nature than that used in the broad range of fiction, both 'conventional' and 'nonconventional'.
The surreal nature of Marcus' work derives in part from the fact that it comprises sentences that are exact in their structure and syntax, but whose words, though familiar, appear to have abandoned their ordinary meanings; they can be read as experiments in the ways in which language and syntax themselves work to create structures of meaning. Common themes that emerge are family, the Midwest, science, mathematics, and religion, although their treatment in Marcus's writing lends to new interpretations and conceptualizations of those concepts.
Marcus was born in Chicago. He attended New York University (NYU) and Brown University, and currently teaches writing at Columbia University where he was recently promoted to head of the writing MFA program. He is the son of Jane Marcus, a noted feminist critic and Virginia Woolf scholar. He is married to novelist Heidi Julavits.
While Marcus' writing plays similarly with the meanings of words by either stripping them of their intended meaning or juxtaposing them with other words in critical ways, it also abandons the 'experimental' nature of so much of the Surrealists' writing for stories that describe human psychology and the human condition through a means that has in later years become notably more subjective and sensory in nature than that used in the broad range of fiction, both 'conventional' and 'nonconventional'.
The surreal nature of Marcus' work derives in part from the fact that it comprises sentences that are exact in their structure and syntax, but whose words, though familiar, appear to have abandoned their ordinary meanings; they can be read as experiments in the ways in which language and syntax themselves work to create structures of meaning. Common themes that emerge are family, the Midwest, science, mathematics, and religion, although their treatment in Marcus's writing lends to new interpretations and conceptualizations of those concepts.
Marcus was born in Chicago. He attended New York University (NYU) and Brown University, and currently teaches writing at Columbia University where he was recently promoted to head of the writing MFA program. He is the son of Jane Marcus, a noted feminist critic and Virginia Woolf scholar. He is married to novelist Heidi Julavits.
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October 24, 2019When I finished this collection of thirty stories by as many authors, I almost decided not to review it because the very thought set my mind in a tailspin. How do you begin to sort out your reactions to such a cornucopia. Cornucopia isn’t even the appropriate word because the collection wasn’t entirely full of good things —about half-full at best, but then how can I have any certainty about the quality when I can't remember much of what I read. This review will be mainly relying on the ticks I put at the end of the stories I liked, but that became a very unreliable method as I read through the book because in the beginning, I put a tick when I liked a story since there weren't many I liked, but then I began putting two ticks or even three when a story really impressed which kind of undervalued the original 'one tick' marks. When I flicked through the book just now, I saw that I gave Mathew Derby’s The Sound Gun eight ticks (not five, not ten, eight!). What was that unbridled enthusiasm about? I’ve no idea now. But I see that I underlined this sentence: I do not miss home, but not for the usual reasons so perhaps the writing offered something to be unbridled about.
If I’ve learned anything from reading this collection, it is that I prefer reading collections of short stories by one author rather than by a group; the huge contrasts in style and themes don’t help any of them appear to advantage. In the end they all become just one amorphous mass.
********************************
Some of the stories that earned ticks:
Mary Caponegro’s The Father’s Blessing: not only did this earn several ticks when I read it but it stayed in my mind long after I’d finished, and I’m currently reading a collection of the author’s stories.
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace: I really enjoyed the narrator’s obsession with the details of a masturbation fantasy involving having sex in a public place but without those witnessing it having any recollection afterwards, leading to a scenario where time had to be stopped. But it wasn’t enough that time be stopped in one place, it had to be stopped everywhere to avoid chronological disfunction between one place and another, and eventually, the earth’s progress around the sun needed to be halted. The stresses of working out the details of the scenario finally took the edge of the fantasy both for the narrator and for the reader. Still, a good story and I'll read more by him.
Deborah Eisenberg’s Someone to Talk To got four ticks and a note in the margin about ‘review’. Clearly I thought this one should get a mention - now it has.
Both Mary Gaitskill’s Tiny, Smiling Daddy and Sam Lipsyte’s I’m slavering got two ticks but I’d have to reread them to figure out why.
Unlike most of the other stories, I can remember Brian Evenson’s Two Brothers in all its southern Gothic detail. Interesting the things we learn about ourselves as we read.
Another story that comes flooding back when I glance at the title is Joanna Scott’s X Number of Possibilities. There’s a medical theme in this one as in the Evenson one. Something about those medical issues clearly strikes a chord with me.
Stephen Dixon’s Down the Road features a guy conversing with a dead body. But there must have been something that appealed because it got three ticks.
Jhumpa Lahiri, the only author I’d read before, offered a memorable story, far better than others I’d read by her.
Gary Lutz’ People Shouldn’t have to be the Ones earned some scribbles in the margin instead of a tick: it seems that I found the theme very odd but I liked what he does with language. This sentence was underlined: He started listening to just the vowelly lining in what she said. Out of context, perhaps it doesn’t work so well...
William Gay’s The Paperhanger: now this one comes back in a flash. My stomach is in knots already just thinking about it. This story draws you in right away and keeps you reading. If that is any kind of criteria of a good short story, this is a good short story.
Anne Carson's Short Talks are a bit like the short pieces in some of Guy Davenport’s essays - art and literature feature a lot. I liked this one in particular: What is the difference between light and lighting? There is an etching called The Three Crosses by Rembrandt. It is a picture of the earth and the sky and Calvary. A moment rains down on them; the plate grows darker. Darker. Rembrandt wakens you just in time to see matter stumble out of its forms.
Scarlotti and the Sinkhole from Padgett Powell: weird, and a little wonderful.
Lydia Davis’s The Old Dictionary is more meditation than story but pleasant to read.
A M Homes’s Do Not Disturb - another medical issue story but which didn’t earn any ticks.
Finally, a story that gripped me right from the beginning: Rick Bass’s Field Events - such a great story for this collection to finish on.
The Caretaker by Anthony Doerr was the only story I couldn’t actually finish.
If I’ve learned anything from reading this collection, it is that I prefer reading collections of short stories by one author rather than by a group; the huge contrasts in style and themes don’t help any of them appear to advantage. In the end they all become just one amorphous mass.
********************************
Some of the stories that earned ticks:
Mary Caponegro’s The Father’s Blessing: not only did this earn several ticks when I read it but it stayed in my mind long after I’d finished, and I’m currently reading a collection of the author’s stories.
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace: I really enjoyed the narrator’s obsession with the details of a masturbation fantasy involving having sex in a public place but without those witnessing it having any recollection afterwards, leading to a scenario where time had to be stopped. But it wasn’t enough that time be stopped in one place, it had to be stopped everywhere to avoid chronological disfunction between one place and another, and eventually, the earth’s progress around the sun needed to be halted. The stresses of working out the details of the scenario finally took the edge of the fantasy both for the narrator and for the reader. Still, a good story and I'll read more by him.
Deborah Eisenberg’s Someone to Talk To got four ticks and a note in the margin about ‘review’. Clearly I thought this one should get a mention - now it has.
Both Mary Gaitskill’s Tiny, Smiling Daddy and Sam Lipsyte’s I’m slavering got two ticks but I’d have to reread them to figure out why.
Unlike most of the other stories, I can remember Brian Evenson’s Two Brothers in all its southern Gothic detail. Interesting the things we learn about ourselves as we read.
Another story that comes flooding back when I glance at the title is Joanna Scott’s X Number of Possibilities. There’s a medical theme in this one as in the Evenson one. Something about those medical issues clearly strikes a chord with me.
Stephen Dixon’s Down the Road features a guy conversing with a dead body. But there must have been something that appealed because it got three ticks.
Jhumpa Lahiri, the only author I’d read before, offered a memorable story, far better than others I’d read by her.
Gary Lutz’ People Shouldn’t have to be the Ones earned some scribbles in the margin instead of a tick: it seems that I found the theme very odd but I liked what he does with language. This sentence was underlined: He started listening to just the vowelly lining in what she said. Out of context, perhaps it doesn’t work so well...
William Gay’s The Paperhanger: now this one comes back in a flash. My stomach is in knots already just thinking about it. This story draws you in right away and keeps you reading. If that is any kind of criteria of a good short story, this is a good short story.
Anne Carson's Short Talks are a bit like the short pieces in some of Guy Davenport’s essays - art and literature feature a lot. I liked this one in particular: What is the difference between light and lighting? There is an etching called The Three Crosses by Rembrandt. It is a picture of the earth and the sky and Calvary. A moment rains down on them; the plate grows darker. Darker. Rembrandt wakens you just in time to see matter stumble out of its forms.
Scarlotti and the Sinkhole from Padgett Powell: weird, and a little wonderful.
Lydia Davis’s The Old Dictionary is more meditation than story but pleasant to read.
A M Homes’s Do Not Disturb - another medical issue story but which didn’t earn any ticks.
Finally, a story that gripped me right from the beginning: Rick Bass’s Field Events - such a great story for this collection to finish on.
The Caretaker by Anthony Doerr was the only story I couldn’t actually finish.
November 16, 2008
There are four absolutely terrific stories in this book:
"The Caretaker" by Anthony Doerr
"When Mr. Pirazda Came to Dine" by Jhumpa Lahiri
"Tiny, Smiling Daddy" by Mary Gaitskill
"Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" by Wells Tower
Some of the contributions, although they don't fully succeed, are well worth reading:
"Gentlemen's Agreement" by Mark Roth
"Someone to Talk To" by Deborah Eisenberg
"Sea Oak" by George Saunders
"Field Events" by Rick Bass
"X Number of Possibilities" by Joanna Scott
"The Old Dictionary" by Lydia Davis
Two of the stories ("The PaperHanger", "Do Not Disturb") are well-written, but feature characters so vile they will leave you (a) needing to take a long, hot shower to get clean (b) wondering just why the author feels it necessary to punish the reader (yeah, we get it A.M. Homes - cancer patients can be loathsome people too, so what?), and with such evident gusto.
Sadly, it's downhill all the way for the remaining 19. Some are merely dull, without being actively offensive. Padgett Powell's 'Scarliotti and the Sinkhole', Ann Cummins's 'Where I Work', Brian Evenson's 'Two Brothers', 'Histories of the Undead' by Kate Braverman, 'You Drive' by Christine Schutt, 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" by David Foster Wallace -- each of these succumbs to some combination of navel-gazing protagonists, incoherent or overly flashy style, or terminal lack of action and generalized anomie (why does nothing happen any more in the modern short story?).
That still leaves ten to a dozen contributions. These are not just bad - they are aggressively, offensively, in-your-face dreadful - the kind of incoherent, smirkingly self-indulgent, look-at-me-see-how-clever-I-am, pointless dreck that makes you want to smack the author (and the editor of this sorry collection) about the head. HARD. The usual grab-bag of archly self-referential, pomo stylistic tics is paraded before the reader, with the results you'd expect. Your computer's IP address packs a greater emotional punch than any of the remaining stories in the book. Calling out individual offenders by name seems pointless; in any case, the real culprit is the editor, Ben Marcus.
I have to admit that the warning signs were right there in Marcus's introductory essay, which is studded with overwrought, barely intelligible, sentences like the following:
* Plot would be another name for our bodies, carved hollow to receive something amazing.
* The story, then, is what the story is hiding, and the hide is indeed a piece of skin, whose effect is to conceal the body.
.... the current practice of the short story has ample methods of matterfulness .....
.. these stories ... are toolkits for the future.
* They could be projected by megaphone onto an empty field and people would grow there.
Marcus acknowledges that he deliberately "tried to include a single vigorous practitioner of each thriving literary style I could identify". What he fails to grasp is that the insistent, obtrusive obsession with stylistic novelty comes at a serious price - even the most technically accomplished of the resulting stories fails to kindle any emotional spark whatsoever. As a result, almost half the stories in this book are emotionally bankrupt, and a complete waste of time.
Viewed as a snapshot of the state of the American short story in 2004, this book is probably a fairly accurate representation. A 10% hit rate (only 3 great stories out of 29) seems pathetically low.
"The Caretaker" by Anthony Doerr
"When Mr. Pirazda Came to Dine" by Jhumpa Lahiri
"Tiny, Smiling Daddy" by Mary Gaitskill
"Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" by Wells Tower
Some of the contributions, although they don't fully succeed, are well worth reading:
"Gentlemen's Agreement" by Mark Roth
"Someone to Talk To" by Deborah Eisenberg
"Sea Oak" by George Saunders
"Field Events" by Rick Bass
"X Number of Possibilities" by Joanna Scott
"The Old Dictionary" by Lydia Davis
Two of the stories ("The PaperHanger", "Do Not Disturb") are well-written, but feature characters so vile they will leave you (a) needing to take a long, hot shower to get clean (b) wondering just why the author feels it necessary to punish the reader (yeah, we get it A.M. Homes - cancer patients can be loathsome people too, so what?), and with such evident gusto.
Sadly, it's downhill all the way for the remaining 19. Some are merely dull, without being actively offensive. Padgett Powell's 'Scarliotti and the Sinkhole', Ann Cummins's 'Where I Work', Brian Evenson's 'Two Brothers', 'Histories of the Undead' by Kate Braverman, 'You Drive' by Christine Schutt, 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" by David Foster Wallace -- each of these succumbs to some combination of navel-gazing protagonists, incoherent or overly flashy style, or terminal lack of action and generalized anomie (why does nothing happen any more in the modern short story?).
That still leaves ten to a dozen contributions. These are not just bad - they are aggressively, offensively, in-your-face dreadful - the kind of incoherent, smirkingly self-indulgent, look-at-me-see-how-clever-I-am, pointless dreck that makes you want to smack the author (and the editor of this sorry collection) about the head. HARD. The usual grab-bag of archly self-referential, pomo stylistic tics is paraded before the reader, with the results you'd expect. Your computer's IP address packs a greater emotional punch than any of the remaining stories in the book. Calling out individual offenders by name seems pointless; in any case, the real culprit is the editor, Ben Marcus.
I have to admit that the warning signs were right there in Marcus's introductory essay, which is studded with overwrought, barely intelligible, sentences like the following:
* Plot would be another name for our bodies, carved hollow to receive something amazing.
* The story, then, is what the story is hiding, and the hide is indeed a piece of skin, whose effect is to conceal the body.
.... the current practice of the short story has ample methods of matterfulness .....
.. these stories ... are toolkits for the future.
* They could be projected by megaphone onto an empty field and people would grow there.
Marcus acknowledges that he deliberately "tried to include a single vigorous practitioner of each thriving literary style I could identify". What he fails to grasp is that the insistent, obtrusive obsession with stylistic novelty comes at a serious price - even the most technically accomplished of the resulting stories fails to kindle any emotional spark whatsoever. As a result, almost half the stories in this book are emotionally bankrupt, and a complete waste of time.
Viewed as a snapshot of the state of the American short story in 2004, this book is probably a fairly accurate representation. A 10% hit rate (only 3 great stories out of 29) seems pathetically low.
October 25, 2020
This book is the literary equivalent of a wine tasting experience. Some wines I found myself spitting all over the wall, but some others were incredibly delicious, and made the whole experience worth it.
Sea Oak by George Saunders. 5 stars. Just out-of-this-world wonderful story. Great balance of humour, social commentary and a sprinkle of magic. But mostly humour.
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower. 4 stars. Vikings feeling the blues. Without the crass attention-grabbing "blood eagle", I'm not sure this story would be as popular as it is.
Do Not Disturb by A.M. Homes. 3/4 stars. Well crafted but SO brutal in its depiction of a failing marriage.
Gentleman's agreement by Mark Richard. 4 stars.
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender. 1 star. Almost total nonsense and posturing. We get a "bunch of subconscious feelings and metaphors about a story", but we don't get the story. Too many elements are either obscure or left to the reader's interpretation (i.e. the two mice, the ending and the title's meaning). So why shouldn't the reader open a phone directory and find his own interpretation of that instead?
This is an author that fully deserves the criticism received by Anis Shivani in an article where he also says: “If we don’t understand bad writing, we can’t understand good writing. Bad writing is characterized by obfuscation, showboating, narcissism, lack of a moral core, and style over substance. Good writing is exactly the opposite. Bad writing draws attention to the writer himself. These writers have betrayed the legacy of modernism, not to mention postmodernism.
The Caretaker by Anthony Doerr. 5 stars. Phenomenal. It inspired me with delight and pleasure. It drew me in completely and made me care for the main character. Also loved the shift of location from Liberia to Oregon.
I'm slavering by Sam Lipsyte. 1 star. Another "WTF" story that some people may say they like in order to feel special about themselves.
The Old Dictionary by Lydia Davis. 4 stars.
The Father’s Blessing by Mary Caponegro 3 stars. Makes you really uneasy with its weirdness, and there is a "Whoa!" moment where magic realism comes in, but at least in this story you are allowed to understand what's going on.
The Life and Work of Alphonse Kauders by Aleksandar Hemon. 1 star. I don't care what thinking went into this biography-by-list of an imaginary person, the story is just bullshit with a cherry on top. I remember writing exactly that type of nonsense (and funnier, too) with a friend of mine at school when we were 12.
The paperhanger by William Gay. 5 stars. Unbelievable, electric raw-power mystery in the "southern gothic" style. What intensity.
People Shouldn’t Have to be the Ones to Tell You by Gary Lutz. 1 star. All form, zero substance. I need someone to build a house and here comes this guy who loves bricks, every single one of them, but doesn't care about the house.
Histories of the Undead by Kate Braverman 2 stars. Beautiful writing, uninteresting content (a mentally ill woman's thoughts)
You drive by Christine Schutt. 1 star. A delicious piece about a father and a daughter having sex in a car. The topic itself is not the main problem (although it would be for me, as in "not interesting, thank you"), the problem is that, in the style of much of this "modern literature", the reader is called to create meaning and interpret things, because all is left unclear. Isn't that cheating? When did writers stop having the responsibility to actually write a story?
When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine by Jhumpa Lahiri. 5 stars. Elegantly written, this story is the only one in the anthology (aside from The Caretaker) that acknowledges the existence of something else outside of America. Yes, it is called "American short stories", but given that fiction is open to anything, I would have liked some more internationally-minded authors.
Down the Road by Stephen Dixon. 1 star. Crazy dude walking in the night with a woman who is probably dead, and with whom he probably has sexual intercourse. Yeah. Really.
Two brothers by Brian Evenson. 2 stars. Too much horror and gore. Not my taste.
All American by Diane Williams. 3 stars. Sounds like a page taken from a psychopath's diary.
X Number of Possibilities by Joanna Scott. 5 stars. Yes. This is a truly compelling story. Some weird elements but it drew me in in its originality and uniqueness.
Tiny, Smiling Daddy by Mary Gaitskill. 4 stars. Clever story, father doesnt understand how bigot and disrespectful he's being to his lesbian daughter.
Someone to talk to by Deborah Eisenberg. 3 stars. Very well written, clever, not pleasant but interesting. Someone said this is the "spiritual core" of this anthology! I scoff with arrogance and move on.
Where I work by Ann Cummins. 4 stars. Nice little story with no ending.
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace. 2 stars. I found it uninteresting. The mental ramblings reminded me of the other story in the anthology, "Down the road". I don't think pointless mental ramblings make for very good stories.
The Sound Gun by Matthew Derby. 3 stars. Surreal war and surreal soldiers.
Short Talks by Anne Carson. 1 star. Angry garbage.
Up the old goat road by Dawn Raffel. 2 stars. Very unclear. One of those "to be read slowly" maybe, but still very unclear.
Field Events by Rick Bass. 2 stars. Fairy-tale-like story full of fit male bodies and male nakedness. Next!
Scarliotti and the Sinkhole by Padgett Powell 3 stars - Good, but I found it a bit too experimental, trying to convey the world of someone with some sort of mental issues. Still worth a read.
my wonderful blog is here
Sea Oak by George Saunders. 5 stars. Just out-of-this-world wonderful story. Great balance of humour, social commentary and a sprinkle of magic. But mostly humour.
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower. 4 stars. Vikings feeling the blues. Without the crass attention-grabbing "blood eagle", I'm not sure this story would be as popular as it is.
Do Not Disturb by A.M. Homes. 3/4 stars. Well crafted but SO brutal in its depiction of a failing marriage.
Gentleman's agreement by Mark Richard. 4 stars.
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender. 1 star. Almost total nonsense and posturing. We get a "bunch of subconscious feelings and metaphors about a story", but we don't get the story. Too many elements are either obscure or left to the reader's interpretation (i.e. the two mice, the ending and the title's meaning). So why shouldn't the reader open a phone directory and find his own interpretation of that instead?
This is an author that fully deserves the criticism received by Anis Shivani in an article where he also says: “If we don’t understand bad writing, we can’t understand good writing. Bad writing is characterized by obfuscation, showboating, narcissism, lack of a moral core, and style over substance. Good writing is exactly the opposite. Bad writing draws attention to the writer himself. These writers have betrayed the legacy of modernism, not to mention postmodernism.
The Caretaker by Anthony Doerr. 5 stars. Phenomenal. It inspired me with delight and pleasure. It drew me in completely and made me care for the main character. Also loved the shift of location from Liberia to Oregon.
I'm slavering by Sam Lipsyte. 1 star. Another "WTF" story that some people may say they like in order to feel special about themselves.
The Old Dictionary by Lydia Davis. 4 stars.
The Father’s Blessing by Mary Caponegro 3 stars. Makes you really uneasy with its weirdness, and there is a "Whoa!" moment where magic realism comes in, but at least in this story you are allowed to understand what's going on.
The Life and Work of Alphonse Kauders by Aleksandar Hemon. 1 star. I don't care what thinking went into this biography-by-list of an imaginary person, the story is just bullshit with a cherry on top. I remember writing exactly that type of nonsense (and funnier, too) with a friend of mine at school when we were 12.
The paperhanger by William Gay. 5 stars. Unbelievable, electric raw-power mystery in the "southern gothic" style. What intensity.
People Shouldn’t Have to be the Ones to Tell You by Gary Lutz. 1 star. All form, zero substance. I need someone to build a house and here comes this guy who loves bricks, every single one of them, but doesn't care about the house.
Histories of the Undead by Kate Braverman 2 stars. Beautiful writing, uninteresting content (a mentally ill woman's thoughts)
You drive by Christine Schutt. 1 star. A delicious piece about a father and a daughter having sex in a car. The topic itself is not the main problem (although it would be for me, as in "not interesting, thank you"), the problem is that, in the style of much of this "modern literature", the reader is called to create meaning and interpret things, because all is left unclear. Isn't that cheating? When did writers stop having the responsibility to actually write a story?
When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine by Jhumpa Lahiri. 5 stars. Elegantly written, this story is the only one in the anthology (aside from The Caretaker) that acknowledges the existence of something else outside of America. Yes, it is called "American short stories", but given that fiction is open to anything, I would have liked some more internationally-minded authors.
Down the Road by Stephen Dixon. 1 star. Crazy dude walking in the night with a woman who is probably dead, and with whom he probably has sexual intercourse. Yeah. Really.
Two brothers by Brian Evenson. 2 stars. Too much horror and gore. Not my taste.
All American by Diane Williams. 3 stars. Sounds like a page taken from a psychopath's diary.
X Number of Possibilities by Joanna Scott. 5 stars. Yes. This is a truly compelling story. Some weird elements but it drew me in in its originality and uniqueness.
Tiny, Smiling Daddy by Mary Gaitskill. 4 stars. Clever story, father doesnt understand how bigot and disrespectful he's being to his lesbian daughter.
Someone to talk to by Deborah Eisenberg. 3 stars. Very well written, clever, not pleasant but interesting. Someone said this is the "spiritual core" of this anthology! I scoff with arrogance and move on.
Where I work by Ann Cummins. 4 stars. Nice little story with no ending.
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace. 2 stars. I found it uninteresting. The mental ramblings reminded me of the other story in the anthology, "Down the road". I don't think pointless mental ramblings make for very good stories.
The Sound Gun by Matthew Derby. 3 stars. Surreal war and surreal soldiers.
Short Talks by Anne Carson. 1 star. Angry garbage.
Up the old goat road by Dawn Raffel. 2 stars. Very unclear. One of those "to be read slowly" maybe, but still very unclear.
Field Events by Rick Bass. 2 stars. Fairy-tale-like story full of fit male bodies and male nakedness. Next!
Scarliotti and the Sinkhole by Padgett Powell 3 stars - Good, but I found it a bit too experimental, trying to convey the world of someone with some sort of mental issues. Still worth a read.
my wonderful blog is here
November 8, 2024
Below are my progress posts with a thought and star rating for each story in this collection. (I had forgotten to log one story so that got added.) I read this over a roughly 2 month period. It was incredibly worthwhile. I had already read three of my favorite stories, by Alexander Hemon, Jhumpa Lahiri and David Foster Wallace, but the rereads were a joy and most of these would never have beeped across my radar had they not been included here. There are only a couple stories in this 19 story collection I am not happy to have read. The average was 3.72 so a 4 it is!
September 17, 2024 –
8.0% "The first story, George Saunders' Sea Oak blew me away. What do you do when your decomposing dead aunt tells you to show your dick for cash? You show your dick for cash! How this this a truly affecting story? Hell if I know. 5-stars."
September 27, 2024 –
12.0% "Everything Ravaged Everything Burned by Wells Tower.
At the sentence level this is exquisite. It is clever, funny (in a New Yorker sort of way, not a laugh-out-loud way), brutal and a very disturbing look at adulting, but adulting for actual Vikings. It made me think of the Tom Waits line:
Well Frank settled down in the Valley
And he hung his wild years
On a nail that he drove through
His wife's forehead
4.5"
September 27, 2024 –
17.0% "Do Not Disturb by AM Homes. Oh yes! Marriage can be worse than cancer. I loved this! 5 stars"
September 28, 2024 –
19.0% "Gentleman's Agreement by Mark Richards.
This did not pull me in and felt too wide-ranging for such a short story. Things were missing that I thought were needed to connect the broken windshield that started the story to the macabre scene in the shed that ended it. I am also on record as not liking things written a child's eye perspective, and though written in 3rd person this qualifies.
2.5 stars"
September 28, 2024 –
20.0% "The Girl With the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender
I am not often a fan of the surreal, and the metaphor of an infirm father making his daughter/caretaker wear a backpack made of stone at all times is a little too on the nose for me. There are some brilliant lines though. It is just a few pages so worth a look for those who enjoy this stripped-down approach to storytelling.
3 stars"
October 7, 2024 –
30.0% "The Caretaker by Anthony Doerr - Doerr's writing is, as ever, vivid and transporting. Most stories cover isolated moments, but this sprawls over the arc of life from a good mother's love, to surviving genocide by making choices when every choice is inhuman, to the time after when we live with the former. It is ambitious and impressive, but I also think it would have been far better as a book than it is as a story. 3.5 stars"
October 8, 2024 –
31.0% "I'm Slavering by Sam Lipsyte. I love Lipsyte's gritty writing, but sometimes it's like fine sandpaper and sometimes like a mouthful of clams not properly washed. I am pretty sure that is intentional. This story about the addicts, the mentally ill, the dysfunctional (not mutually exclusive categories) who follow each other off the cliff feels true, It's beautifully crafted, and also often not enjoyable. A 4?"
October 8, 2024 –
32.0% "The Old Dictionary by Lydia Davis - Well that was great! I think it did what Ducks, Newberryport did in a few pages rather than 1000. 5-stars."
October 14, 2024 –
37.0% "The Father's Blessing by Mary Caponegro. That ended up being unsettling after being unpleasantly ridiculous for the most part. This tale of a demented, disconnected, incompetent, self-congratulatory priest has some humor I suppose, but it is an effortful humor, and the many prettily crafted passages are effortful too. It never worked for me, the end was creepy AF to no end, but an A for effort. 2-stars."
October 14, 2024 –
40.0% "The Life and Work of Alphonse Cauders by Alexander Hemon. I had already read this, in the excellent collection The Question of Bruno. Hemon is a Bosnian now in America, and the brutality and absurdities of living under strongman rule are at the center of his work. This is a sort of anti-hagiography of a Zelig type character followed by historical notes. Odd is an understatement, so is brilliant. 5-stars."
October 18, 2024 –
44.0% "The Paperhanger by William Gay. A beautifully written tragedy filled with malevolence and collapse. 5-stars"
October 18, 2024 –
46.0% "People Shouldn't Have to be the Ones Who Tell You by Gary Lutz
I hated this. The exemplar, the dictionary definition, of pretentious writing. "The arc of his piss was at least the suggestion of a path that thoughts could later take." "The two of them came by together one night, alike in the sherbety tint to their lips and the violescent quickening to their eyelids." 1-star"
October 18, 2024 –
49.0% "Histories of the Undead by Kate Braverman
Enveloping and haunting, We ride along as a woman comes apart, finding herself in a fugue where she immerses herself in the lives of others (some she doesn't even know) to escape from actual life, work, husband, child, and speaks of inanities (including others lives) rather than death or decay or joylessness. Moving and thought-provoking in an insistent way. 4.5 stars"
October 20, 2024 –
51.0% "You Drive by Christine Schutt - Revolting, horrifying, unbelievably effective. Awed by the craft, and never want to read this again. What incest and sexual assault will do to a person. Abnegation of self. 5-stars"
October 21, 2024 –
55.0% "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine by Jhumpa Lahiri
Another reread. This is from Interpreter of Maladies. I cried. I never cry. A story of being an Indian American immediately after the Partition. The MC's Indian family befriends a Bengali scholar whose wife and 7 daughters are in what is now Bangladesh during the tensions and eventual war. There were no means of communication. Mr. Pirzada's grace and fear and the MCs pure heart moved me profoundly. Unambiguously 5-stars"
October 24, 2024 –
55.0% "X Number of Possibilities by Joanna Scott. In some ways the most straightforward story in this anthology, but I don't think I understood it. I think that the message is that we invent ourselves and the biggest threat to contentment (and also the greatest possibility for salvation) is others seeing inside us (by x-ray, empathy, or ESP.) We need to fend off that which shows what is inside to keep things placid, 3 stars"
October 24, 2024 –
60.0%
October 25, 2024 –
65.0% "Two Brothers by Brian Evenson - This is the perfect iteration of what it is trying to be. It is repulsive, horrifying, disgusting, soul-killing, but perfect. I never ever want to read it again. 5-stars."
October 26, 2024 –
68.0% "Tiny Smiling Daddy by Mary Gaitskill - I love Mary Gaitskill's work and this was no exception. We see an old Midwestern man so contained by his anger and relentless need for control that he shuts out the world, including his daughter whose lesbianism he treats as a personal attack. When she writes an article about their relationship he has to fight to compartmentalize and redirect fault. Heartbreaking. 5-stars"
October 27, 2024 –
75.0% "Someone to Talk To by Deborah Eisenberg: Art and commerce and love and ethics cannot mix. The secret to a happy life is to get a bit lucky and stay where luck placed you and to not feel things. The secret to art is to experience the world fully and feel everything. Impossible paradox. 5-stars."
October 27, 2024 –
75.0% "Down the Road by Stephen Dixon. I just realized I never put in a comment or star rating for this which I read several days ago. I thought it was an interesting exercise, We sort of tunnel inside the head of this man who is having a moment where he has to choose his own survival over that of another. I didn't love it but it was well done. 3.5 stars."
Also forgot to log All American by Diane Williams. I think this did what it was intended to do so I can't go lower than a 2. I did not like the way it chose to achieve its ends. Not a microfiction girl. 2 stars
November 3, 2024 –
79.0% "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
This was not my first time reading this story, and every time I do I am gobsmacked. DFW would have been so much happier if his mind ever stopped. Simultaneously the most uproariously funny and guttingly sad story about sexual release and its difficulty in a world filled with paradox that has ever been written. 5 stars."
November 4, 2024 –
81.0% "Where I Work by Ann Cummins. It was a strong character sketch I guess, but a few pages of reaching across education and class divide to experience a poor uneducated (possibly developmentally delayed) young woman's failure and oddness is not really enough for me. 2-stars."
November 4, 2024 –
84.0% "The Sound Gun by Matthew Darby. I try to judge a book at least partly on whether I think the author achieved what he set out to do. I think Darby did that. I hated the pretentious heavy-handed approach and can name a dozen other pieces, stories and novels, that I think told essentially the same story to the same end and did it much better, and which I definitely got more from. He ain't no Vonnegut. 2-stars"
November 4, 2024 –
86.0% "Short Talks by Anne Carson. Brilliant glorious prose poems. 5-stars
"On Hedonism: Beauty makes me hopeless. I don’t care why anymore I just want to get away. When I look at the city of Paris I long to wrap my legs around it. When I watch you dancing there is a heartless immensity like a sailor in a dead-calm sea. Desires as round as peaches bloom in me all night, I no longer gather what falls."
November 4, 2024 –
86.0% "Up the Old Goat Road by Dawn Raffel
I rarely like microfiction, and I don't like it here. I don't know why I read this, and am not nearly invested enough to care. 1.5 stars."
November 4, 2024 –
89.0% "Scarlotti and the Sinkhole by Padget Powell - Funny, absurd, sad, really gross. An entertaining slice of drunken, horny, injured Florida redneck life. 4-stars"
November 5, 2024 –
89.0% "Letters to Wendy's by Joe Wenderoth - This is exactly the kind of clever that I hate. Pithy comment cards. I had no idea what it was and was just confused and unamused until I Googled, now I am annoyed and unamused. 1 star"
Field Events by Rick Bass - A magical mythic and also very ordinary love story. So sweet it almost lapses into saccharine, but then Bass sticks the landing. 4 stars.
September 17, 2024 –
8.0% "The first story, George Saunders' Sea Oak blew me away. What do you do when your decomposing dead aunt tells you to show your dick for cash? You show your dick for cash! How this this a truly affecting story? Hell if I know. 5-stars."
September 27, 2024 –
12.0% "Everything Ravaged Everything Burned by Wells Tower.
At the sentence level this is exquisite. It is clever, funny (in a New Yorker sort of way, not a laugh-out-loud way), brutal and a very disturbing look at adulting, but adulting for actual Vikings. It made me think of the Tom Waits line:
Well Frank settled down in the Valley
And he hung his wild years
On a nail that he drove through
His wife's forehead
4.5"
September 27, 2024 –
17.0% "Do Not Disturb by AM Homes. Oh yes! Marriage can be worse than cancer. I loved this! 5 stars"
September 28, 2024 –
19.0% "Gentleman's Agreement by Mark Richards.
This did not pull me in and felt too wide-ranging for such a short story. Things were missing that I thought were needed to connect the broken windshield that started the story to the macabre scene in the shed that ended it. I am also on record as not liking things written a child's eye perspective, and though written in 3rd person this qualifies.
2.5 stars"
September 28, 2024 –
20.0% "The Girl With the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender
I am not often a fan of the surreal, and the metaphor of an infirm father making his daughter/caretaker wear a backpack made of stone at all times is a little too on the nose for me. There are some brilliant lines though. It is just a few pages so worth a look for those who enjoy this stripped-down approach to storytelling.
3 stars"
October 7, 2024 –
30.0% "The Caretaker by Anthony Doerr - Doerr's writing is, as ever, vivid and transporting. Most stories cover isolated moments, but this sprawls over the arc of life from a good mother's love, to surviving genocide by making choices when every choice is inhuman, to the time after when we live with the former. It is ambitious and impressive, but I also think it would have been far better as a book than it is as a story. 3.5 stars"
October 8, 2024 –
31.0% "I'm Slavering by Sam Lipsyte. I love Lipsyte's gritty writing, but sometimes it's like fine sandpaper and sometimes like a mouthful of clams not properly washed. I am pretty sure that is intentional. This story about the addicts, the mentally ill, the dysfunctional (not mutually exclusive categories) who follow each other off the cliff feels true, It's beautifully crafted, and also often not enjoyable. A 4?"
October 8, 2024 –
32.0% "The Old Dictionary by Lydia Davis - Well that was great! I think it did what Ducks, Newberryport did in a few pages rather than 1000. 5-stars."
October 14, 2024 –
37.0% "The Father's Blessing by Mary Caponegro. That ended up being unsettling after being unpleasantly ridiculous for the most part. This tale of a demented, disconnected, incompetent, self-congratulatory priest has some humor I suppose, but it is an effortful humor, and the many prettily crafted passages are effortful too. It never worked for me, the end was creepy AF to no end, but an A for effort. 2-stars."
October 14, 2024 –
40.0% "The Life and Work of Alphonse Cauders by Alexander Hemon. I had already read this, in the excellent collection The Question of Bruno. Hemon is a Bosnian now in America, and the brutality and absurdities of living under strongman rule are at the center of his work. This is a sort of anti-hagiography of a Zelig type character followed by historical notes. Odd is an understatement, so is brilliant. 5-stars."
October 18, 2024 –
44.0% "The Paperhanger by William Gay. A beautifully written tragedy filled with malevolence and collapse. 5-stars"
October 18, 2024 –
46.0% "People Shouldn't Have to be the Ones Who Tell You by Gary Lutz
I hated this. The exemplar, the dictionary definition, of pretentious writing. "The arc of his piss was at least the suggestion of a path that thoughts could later take." "The two of them came by together one night, alike in the sherbety tint to their lips and the violescent quickening to their eyelids." 1-star"
October 18, 2024 –
49.0% "Histories of the Undead by Kate Braverman
Enveloping and haunting, We ride along as a woman comes apart, finding herself in a fugue where she immerses herself in the lives of others (some she doesn't even know) to escape from actual life, work, husband, child, and speaks of inanities (including others lives) rather than death or decay or joylessness. Moving and thought-provoking in an insistent way. 4.5 stars"
October 20, 2024 –
51.0% "You Drive by Christine Schutt - Revolting, horrifying, unbelievably effective. Awed by the craft, and never want to read this again. What incest and sexual assault will do to a person. Abnegation of self. 5-stars"
October 21, 2024 –
55.0% "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine by Jhumpa Lahiri
Another reread. This is from Interpreter of Maladies. I cried. I never cry. A story of being an Indian American immediately after the Partition. The MC's Indian family befriends a Bengali scholar whose wife and 7 daughters are in what is now Bangladesh during the tensions and eventual war. There were no means of communication. Mr. Pirzada's grace and fear and the MCs pure heart moved me profoundly. Unambiguously 5-stars"
October 24, 2024 –
55.0% "X Number of Possibilities by Joanna Scott. In some ways the most straightforward story in this anthology, but I don't think I understood it. I think that the message is that we invent ourselves and the biggest threat to contentment (and also the greatest possibility for salvation) is others seeing inside us (by x-ray, empathy, or ESP.) We need to fend off that which shows what is inside to keep things placid, 3 stars"
October 24, 2024 –
60.0%
October 25, 2024 –
65.0% "Two Brothers by Brian Evenson - This is the perfect iteration of what it is trying to be. It is repulsive, horrifying, disgusting, soul-killing, but perfect. I never ever want to read it again. 5-stars."
October 26, 2024 –
68.0% "Tiny Smiling Daddy by Mary Gaitskill - I love Mary Gaitskill's work and this was no exception. We see an old Midwestern man so contained by his anger and relentless need for control that he shuts out the world, including his daughter whose lesbianism he treats as a personal attack. When she writes an article about their relationship he has to fight to compartmentalize and redirect fault. Heartbreaking. 5-stars"
October 27, 2024 –
75.0% "Someone to Talk To by Deborah Eisenberg: Art and commerce and love and ethics cannot mix. The secret to a happy life is to get a bit lucky and stay where luck placed you and to not feel things. The secret to art is to experience the world fully and feel everything. Impossible paradox. 5-stars."
October 27, 2024 –
75.0% "Down the Road by Stephen Dixon. I just realized I never put in a comment or star rating for this which I read several days ago. I thought it was an interesting exercise, We sort of tunnel inside the head of this man who is having a moment where he has to choose his own survival over that of another. I didn't love it but it was well done. 3.5 stars."
Also forgot to log All American by Diane Williams. I think this did what it was intended to do so I can't go lower than a 2. I did not like the way it chose to achieve its ends. Not a microfiction girl. 2 stars
November 3, 2024 –
79.0% "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
This was not my first time reading this story, and every time I do I am gobsmacked. DFW would have been so much happier if his mind ever stopped. Simultaneously the most uproariously funny and guttingly sad story about sexual release and its difficulty in a world filled with paradox that has ever been written. 5 stars."
November 4, 2024 –
81.0% "Where I Work by Ann Cummins. It was a strong character sketch I guess, but a few pages of reaching across education and class divide to experience a poor uneducated (possibly developmentally delayed) young woman's failure and oddness is not really enough for me. 2-stars."
November 4, 2024 –
84.0% "The Sound Gun by Matthew Darby. I try to judge a book at least partly on whether I think the author achieved what he set out to do. I think Darby did that. I hated the pretentious heavy-handed approach and can name a dozen other pieces, stories and novels, that I think told essentially the same story to the same end and did it much better, and which I definitely got more from. He ain't no Vonnegut. 2-stars"
November 4, 2024 –
86.0% "Short Talks by Anne Carson. Brilliant glorious prose poems. 5-stars
"On Hedonism: Beauty makes me hopeless. I don’t care why anymore I just want to get away. When I look at the city of Paris I long to wrap my legs around it. When I watch you dancing there is a heartless immensity like a sailor in a dead-calm sea. Desires as round as peaches bloom in me all night, I no longer gather what falls."
November 4, 2024 –
86.0% "Up the Old Goat Road by Dawn Raffel
I rarely like microfiction, and I don't like it here. I don't know why I read this, and am not nearly invested enough to care. 1.5 stars."
November 4, 2024 –
89.0% "Scarlotti and the Sinkhole by Padget Powell - Funny, absurd, sad, really gross. An entertaining slice of drunken, horny, injured Florida redneck life. 4-stars"
November 5, 2024 –
89.0% "Letters to Wendy's by Joe Wenderoth - This is exactly the kind of clever that I hate. Pithy comment cards. I had no idea what it was and was just confused and unamused until I Googled, now I am annoyed and unamused. 1 star"
Field Events by Rick Bass - A magical mythic and also very ordinary love story. So sweet it almost lapses into saccharine, but then Bass sticks the landing. 4 stars.
January 28, 2023
To be honest only a small number of these stories really struck me.
May 17, 2008
Anthologies are fun because you discover new authors. "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" by Wells Tower blew me away. "Sea Oak" by George Saunders also stuck with me. Also, I was briefly obsessed with the book's cover design.
May 17, 2012
Like a lot of collections of varying emotional platitudes and experience, this is no different, and is always hit or miss, and rarely consistently great.
With the exception of an abysmal middle section that spans a couple hundred pages or so, the real meat of this book occurs somewhere at the beginning and the end.
What follows are little synopses of my top 5 stories. So, if by chance, you happen to have this book in your hands or are able to procure it for cheap, I recommend directing your attention to these five, you know, if chronological reading doesn't work out for you.
1) "The Caretaker," Anthony Doerr (This guy's name keeps on popping up in collections everywhere, his stories usually ahead of the pack; that must mean something. Anyway, a Liberian escapes the civil war in the late 1980s and somehow finds himself ocean-wise, in Oregon.)
2) "Field Events," Rick Bass (A.C., a super massive gargantuan of a person meets a family of "misfits," who attempt to harness his strength in the great American pastime of discus throwing. Touching and among the most honest and realistic stories in the collection.
3) "Sea Oak," George Saunders (A tight-nit family not necessarily tight-nit by choice, struggles through financial ineptitude, as one son dances the night away, and his grandma continues to push him on for the sake of the family, telling him, "Go show your cock!" Dialogue is error-filled, and absolutely perfect.)
4) "Do Not Disturb," A.M. Humes (Woman who is herself a doctor, gets diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Her emotionally wayward husband attempts to stick by her side through it all.)
5) "Scarliotti and the Sinkhole," Padgett Powell (Just read it. All attempts at classifying this story or even explaining it will sound like mush. Powell's sense of character and dialogue is uncanny and amazingly frazzled at times, bringing life to every instant.)
With the exception of an abysmal middle section that spans a couple hundred pages or so, the real meat of this book occurs somewhere at the beginning and the end.
What follows are little synopses of my top 5 stories. So, if by chance, you happen to have this book in your hands or are able to procure it for cheap, I recommend directing your attention to these five, you know, if chronological reading doesn't work out for you.
1) "The Caretaker," Anthony Doerr (This guy's name keeps on popping up in collections everywhere, his stories usually ahead of the pack; that must mean something. Anyway, a Liberian escapes the civil war in the late 1980s and somehow finds himself ocean-wise, in Oregon.)
2) "Field Events," Rick Bass (A.C., a super massive gargantuan of a person meets a family of "misfits," who attempt to harness his strength in the great American pastime of discus throwing. Touching and among the most honest and realistic stories in the collection.
3) "Sea Oak," George Saunders (A tight-nit family not necessarily tight-nit by choice, struggles through financial ineptitude, as one son dances the night away, and his grandma continues to push him on for the sake of the family, telling him, "Go show your cock!" Dialogue is error-filled, and absolutely perfect.)
4) "Do Not Disturb," A.M. Humes (Woman who is herself a doctor, gets diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Her emotionally wayward husband attempts to stick by her side through it all.)
5) "Scarliotti and the Sinkhole," Padgett Powell (Just read it. All attempts at classifying this story or even explaining it will sound like mush. Powell's sense of character and dialogue is uncanny and amazingly frazzled at times, bringing life to every instant.)
April 23, 2016
Brought this with me during my bookstore shift thinking, okay, Rachel, let's knock this out! Didn't happen. 3 stories from the finish and I have got some feelings to share.
The authors I already knew (Gaitskill, Homes, Doerr, Richard) have exceptional examples of their work in this - Evenson's "Two Brothers" especially was a violent treat - so hats off to them. There's another third of authors I hadn't heard of whose work I immediately wanted more of, which is the true beauty of anthologies like this - I'm stoked to read more Kate Braverman, Matthew Derby, Joanna Scott, William Gay, and Rick Bass. Honestly, "The Paperhanger" is worth the price of the entire book.
But that leaves everything else and god, but some of this "fiction" is downright impenetrable. I looked up a lot of these authors on Goodreads and most, I hate to say, are pretty underrated (as in they have very, very few ratings). The perv factor is also unnecessarily high in this collection which makes me wonder about Ben Marcus's proclivities, but then again, it's Ben Marcus. I shouldn't be surprised.
And come on - wtf is Anne Carson doing in a book of short stories?
The authors I already knew (Gaitskill, Homes, Doerr, Richard) have exceptional examples of their work in this - Evenson's "Two Brothers" especially was a violent treat - so hats off to them. There's another third of authors I hadn't heard of whose work I immediately wanted more of, which is the true beauty of anthologies like this - I'm stoked to read more Kate Braverman, Matthew Derby, Joanna Scott, William Gay, and Rick Bass. Honestly, "The Paperhanger" is worth the price of the entire book.
But that leaves everything else and god, but some of this "fiction" is downright impenetrable. I looked up a lot of these authors on Goodreads and most, I hate to say, are pretty underrated (as in they have very, very few ratings). The perv factor is also unnecessarily high in this collection which makes me wonder about Ben Marcus's proclivities, but then again, it's Ben Marcus. I shouldn't be surprised.
And come on - wtf is Anne Carson doing in a book of short stories?
March 25, 2017
I was given this a few years back and I actually think it's a pretty fantastic collection and I've gone on to read books by many of the authors in it. I saw a copy for cheap on the library sale rack and picked it up to pass along to a friend. I never really liked George Saunders until I read SeaOak in here which is so funny and sad. And also way big ups to Mathew Derby, that story and the collection that it's from are fantastic. Even A.M. Homes, who I get the feeling kind of drops the ball with her novels is pretty banging at short stories. To me, it seems like a great overview of contemporary fiction to read for pleasure or it seems pretty ideal for a university lit course reading list
December 25, 2021
This 2004 collection is notable because of the narrow slice of time from which it draws its selections. With just five exceptions - the oldest being a Diane Williams story from 1988 - these 29 stories were all published between 1997 and 2003. So that is Marcus laying down his marker for the primacy of the stories from these six years. What does Marcus find so exciting? What is the aesthetic driving his selections? In his strong introductory essay he asks what is the story's tactic of mattering, it's strategy to last inside the reader? (So that's his test.) His answer is that "the story, then, is what the story is hiding, and the hide is indeed a piece of skin, whose effect is to conceal the body." And, finally, here's Marcus' aesthetic: "What unites these stories, what might be called their shared business is a relentless drive to matter, to mean something, to make feeling where there was none." But isn't that what great stories have always done? Strong collection but let's not pretend that these stories do something that the stories which preceded them didn't.
February 16, 2018
So I had to read a few of these short stories for a class and decided "eh, why not, I'll read them all." I was both pleased and displeased with this decision. I really loved a few short stories in this collection, but honestly for the most part I felt like they were trying too hard to be *unique* and *thought-provoking* and *literary* that they just came across as grotesque or stupid and uggghhh. I hated that. The only reason this book is 3 stars is for the few stories in here that were, like, life-changing.
Alright! Here we go, from least favorite to favorite:
29. The Father's Blessing by Mary Caponegro 1/5: This was stupid and dumb and it didn't make any sense and it was creepy and I hated it yayaa
28. Two Brothers by Brain Evenson 1/5: Basically the same thing as above
27. Scarliotti and the Sinkhole 1.5/5: WTF was this?? I seriously don't know what some of these authors were DOINGGGGGG
26. People Shouldn't Have to be the Ones to Tell You by Gary Lutz 2/5: None of this made sense.
25. I'm Slavering by Sam Lipsyte 2/5: I actually had to read another one of his works for the class and luckily I liked it much more but this one just didn't make any coherent sense so I couldn't even begin to actually fathom what it was about.
24. You Drive by Christine Schutt 2/5: THIS DIDN'T MAKE SENSE!!!! I didn't LIKE IT!!
23. The Life and Work of Alphonse Kaunders by Aleksander Hemon 2/5: This was stupid and grotesque just for the sake of being so.
22. Someone to Talk to by Deborah Eisenberg 2.5/5: I felt like this was trying to be deep but it didn't really go anywhere? I didn't get the point of this one. The only thing going for it was the dialogue.
21. Short Talks by Anne Carson 2.5/5: This DIDN'T MAKE SENSEEEEEEEEEEASFASLDKFL
20. Gentleman's Agreement by Mark Richard 2.5/5: This was just short, weird, and sad. And gross. I just. Why???
19. All American by Diane Williams 2.5/5: I literally remember nothing about this one other than it was really short and I didn't really like it. There's like incest all up in these stories and I really could have just done without it.
18. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace 2.5/5: This actually started off kind-of interesting (I mean, in a bad way, but kinda, IDK), but it just went off in a totally different direction that didn't connect to what was being talked about and it, again, DIDN'T MAKE SENSE. Why does something have to not make sense in order to qualify as stellar literary fiction??? I don't GET IT.
17. The Sound Gun by Matthew Derby 3/5: This was interesting, I guess. I don't really have anything to say about it.....
16. The Paperhanger by William Gay 3/5: This was good in a way, but I just didn't like the subject matter that was being talked about at allllll.
15. Histories of the Undead by Kate Braverman 3/5: I liked this one! But it was just okay. Hheh.
14. Letters to Wendy's by Joe Wenderoth 3/5: This one also didn't make sense but it was in a different format of not making sense so I guess I just accepted it.
13. Up the Old Goat Road by Dawn Raffel 3/5: I wish this one was longer, because I think it could've gone somewhere.
12. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower 3/5: This was interesting, but IDK it just didn't have enough in it for me.
11. Do Not Disturb by A.M. Homes 3/5: This was interesting, but it made me depressed and mad at humanity, so.
10. The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Amiee Bender 3/5: This was pretty disjointed, but still had some really cool imagery.
9. The Old Dictionary by Lydia Davis 3.5/5: Also shoulda been longer.
8. Down the Road by Stephen Dixon 4/5: This one is literally almost the same as the other road one except a tiny bit longer and I guess I liked the writing more.
7. X Number of Possibilities by Joanna Scott 4/5: I actually really liked this one; I thought it was super interesting and really wanted to know more.
6. Where I Work by Ann Cummins 4/5: I also really liked this one! It was realistic! Not gross! Amazing!
5. Tiny, Smiling Daddy by Mary Gaitskill 4/5: Ughhhh this one was heartbreaking.
4. Field Events by Rick Bass 4.5/5: I loved this one. I was so worried something bad was going to happen to these beautiful characters but they were okay and I loved them. They all deserve happiness forever.
3. When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine 5/5: Amazing. I was so sad at the end. Gosh. Help.
2. Sea Oak by George Saunders 5/5: Started off hella strong. I loved this SO much. I had to read another story of his for class as well and just. Wonderful and weird. It was really strange but for some reason the characters were so endearing and I want to read everything this man has written.
1. The Caretaker by Anthony Doerr 5/5: I can see why this guy is so famous. What a beautifully sad/happy story. Reading all that mayhem at the bottom of this list was worth it for this story.
Alright! Here we go, from least favorite to favorite:
29. The Father's Blessing by Mary Caponegro 1/5: This was stupid and dumb and it didn't make any sense and it was creepy and I hated it yayaa
28. Two Brothers by Brain Evenson 1/5: Basically the same thing as above
27. Scarliotti and the Sinkhole 1.5/5: WTF was this?? I seriously don't know what some of these authors were DOINGGGGGG
26. People Shouldn't Have to be the Ones to Tell You by Gary Lutz 2/5: None of this made sense.
25. I'm Slavering by Sam Lipsyte 2/5: I actually had to read another one of his works for the class and luckily I liked it much more but this one just didn't make any coherent sense so I couldn't even begin to actually fathom what it was about.
24. You Drive by Christine Schutt 2/5: THIS DIDN'T MAKE SENSE!!!! I didn't LIKE IT!!
23. The Life and Work of Alphonse Kaunders by Aleksander Hemon 2/5: This was stupid and grotesque just for the sake of being so.
22. Someone to Talk to by Deborah Eisenberg 2.5/5: I felt like this was trying to be deep but it didn't really go anywhere? I didn't get the point of this one. The only thing going for it was the dialogue.
21. Short Talks by Anne Carson 2.5/5: This DIDN'T MAKE SENSEEEEEEEEEEASFASLDKFL
20. Gentleman's Agreement by Mark Richard 2.5/5: This was just short, weird, and sad. And gross. I just. Why???
19. All American by Diane Williams 2.5/5: I literally remember nothing about this one other than it was really short and I didn't really like it. There's like incest all up in these stories and I really could have just done without it.
18. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace 2.5/5: This actually started off kind-of interesting (I mean, in a bad way, but kinda, IDK), but it just went off in a totally different direction that didn't connect to what was being talked about and it, again, DIDN'T MAKE SENSE. Why does something have to not make sense in order to qualify as stellar literary fiction??? I don't GET IT.
17. The Sound Gun by Matthew Derby 3/5: This was interesting, I guess. I don't really have anything to say about it.....
16. The Paperhanger by William Gay 3/5: This was good in a way, but I just didn't like the subject matter that was being talked about at allllll.
15. Histories of the Undead by Kate Braverman 3/5: I liked this one! But it was just okay. Hheh.
14. Letters to Wendy's by Joe Wenderoth 3/5: This one also didn't make sense but it was in a different format of not making sense so I guess I just accepted it.
13. Up the Old Goat Road by Dawn Raffel 3/5: I wish this one was longer, because I think it could've gone somewhere.
12. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower 3/5: This was interesting, but IDK it just didn't have enough in it for me.
11. Do Not Disturb by A.M. Homes 3/5: This was interesting, but it made me depressed and mad at humanity, so.
10. The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Amiee Bender 3/5: This was pretty disjointed, but still had some really cool imagery.
9. The Old Dictionary by Lydia Davis 3.5/5: Also shoulda been longer.
8. Down the Road by Stephen Dixon 4/5: This one is literally almost the same as the other road one except a tiny bit longer and I guess I liked the writing more.
7. X Number of Possibilities by Joanna Scott 4/5: I actually really liked this one; I thought it was super interesting and really wanted to know more.
6. Where I Work by Ann Cummins 4/5: I also really liked this one! It was realistic! Not gross! Amazing!
5. Tiny, Smiling Daddy by Mary Gaitskill 4/5: Ughhhh this one was heartbreaking.
4. Field Events by Rick Bass 4.5/5: I loved this one. I was so worried something bad was going to happen to these beautiful characters but they were okay and I loved them. They all deserve happiness forever.
3. When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine 5/5: Amazing. I was so sad at the end. Gosh. Help.
2. Sea Oak by George Saunders 5/5: Started off hella strong. I loved this SO much. I had to read another story of his for class as well and just. Wonderful and weird. It was really strange but for some reason the characters were so endearing and I want to read everything this man has written.
1. The Caretaker by Anthony Doerr 5/5: I can see why this guy is so famous. What a beautifully sad/happy story. Reading all that mayhem at the bottom of this list was worth it for this story.
August 9, 2010
"The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories" was edited by Ben Marcus and was actually the first short story collection that I got for my Kindle, and I just got around to finishing it (shows how good I am about keeping up with things, huh?). It contains 29 stories by the authors listed on the cover. Some of the authors are famous and well-known, while others will be new discoveries for readers. It was published in 2004, before some of them became established. Wells Tower's story "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" was published here for the first time, before it became the title story of his first collection and he was on the 20 Under 40 list.
The styles of storytelling are as varied as the names, so if you expect to like this collection it forces you to keep an open mind, which in this context means having to allow for a woman who just gave birth and her mother having a conversation inside her nether regions, a zombie aunt demanding her nephew do a full monty, and a host of other disturbing scenes, as well as a bucketload of pretentious, nigh-inaccessible prose (I'm looking at you, "Letters to Wendy's" by Joe Wederoth and "Short Talks" by Anne Carson).
Whenever there is a story by a realist writer like Anthony Doerr or Jhumpa Lahiri, who both write beautiful stories about the affects of war, or Rick Bass, who ends the collection with the heartwarming "Field Events," it's something of a breath of fresh air, and they feel out of place.
Another kind of story that feels that way is any story that isn't deeply unsettling. The story "Two Brothers" by Brian Evenson is one long series of disturbing passages, as is "The Paperhanger" by William Gay, but they were the 1998 and 2001 O. Henry Prize winners, respectively, so who am I to criticize? I also think I was a bit happier before Tower showed me what a "blood eagle" is in graphic detail.
Other notable stories in this collection are the timely "Tiny, Smiling Daddy," by Mary Gaitskill, an excerpt from the late David Foster Wallace's "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men," and the mock-biographical sketch "The Life and Works of Alphonse Kauders," about a fictional Nazi pornography enthusiast by Aleksandar Hemon.
To sum up, I would say that this collection is worth checking out, just be prepared for an ever-shifting landscape of writing styles and lots of Gothic imagery.
The styles of storytelling are as varied as the names, so if you expect to like this collection it forces you to keep an open mind, which in this context means having to allow for a woman who just gave birth and her mother having a conversation inside her nether regions, a zombie aunt demanding her nephew do a full monty, and a host of other disturbing scenes, as well as a bucketload of pretentious, nigh-inaccessible prose (I'm looking at you, "Letters to Wendy's" by Joe Wederoth and "Short Talks" by Anne Carson).
Whenever there is a story by a realist writer like Anthony Doerr or Jhumpa Lahiri, who both write beautiful stories about the affects of war, or Rick Bass, who ends the collection with the heartwarming "Field Events," it's something of a breath of fresh air, and they feel out of place.
Another kind of story that feels that way is any story that isn't deeply unsettling. The story "Two Brothers" by Brian Evenson is one long series of disturbing passages, as is "The Paperhanger" by William Gay, but they were the 1998 and 2001 O. Henry Prize winners, respectively, so who am I to criticize? I also think I was a bit happier before Tower showed me what a "blood eagle" is in graphic detail.
Other notable stories in this collection are the timely "Tiny, Smiling Daddy," by Mary Gaitskill, an excerpt from the late David Foster Wallace's "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men," and the mock-biographical sketch "The Life and Works of Alphonse Kauders," about a fictional Nazi pornography enthusiast by Aleksandar Hemon.
To sum up, I would say that this collection is worth checking out, just be prepared for an ever-shifting landscape of writing styles and lots of Gothic imagery.
January 26, 2008
Very disappointing collection. No surprises - the short story authors that I already knew were great had great stories (William Gay, using probably the most anthologized story in recent history, "The Paperhanger", A.M. Holmes, George Saunders) while more than 3/4 of the book's stories are limp and uninteresting. I did learn of one author that is new to me, though - Lydia Davis. Her story, "The Old Dictionary", all of 2.5 pages long, is *amazing*.
September 10, 2016
(4.4/5.0) Even if many of these stories are unreadable, Ben Marcus is has become one of my literary heroes. He rallies for language and the unexpected and together, the best of these stories come off as real marvels– the worst, interesting studies in narrative failure.
June 7, 2016
Some good stories but mostly quirky shit. Which I like. They put me to sleep good.
December 18, 2015
Brilliant selection of stories! You cannot miss with this one!
February 21, 2021
This was an excellent short story anthology! Ben Marcus's introduction is fantastic and offers helpful and moving thoughts on the short story as a form. The stories he selected for this anthology are so wide-ranging, it's like a wine tasting of stories. There's something for everyone! It was so interesting to see the variety of styles presented here. Lots of amazing writing, and some stuff that just wasn't for me.
Absolute favorites included:
-Sea Oak by George Saunders (had read this one before)
-Do Not Disturb by A.M. Homes (this one was SO GOOD. the language was so sharp! The story slayed me).
-The Old Dictionary by Lydia Davis (need to read more of her)
-Histories of the Undead by Kate Braverman (got Virginia Woolf vibes with the lovely stream of consciousness)
-When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine (had read before)
-All American by Diane Williams (so punchy and fierce! Wished it was longer)
-Tiny, Smiling Daddy by Mary Gaitskill (brilliant and heartbreaking. Need to read more of her work!)
-The Sound Gun by Matthew Derby (surreal and fun)
-Field Events by Rick Bass (a pleasant surprise, moving and lovely)
Also enjoyed:
-The Caretaker by Anthony Doerr (beautiful)
-The Paperhanger by William Gay (creepy and well done)
-X Number of Possibilities by Joanna Scott (intriguing)
Deeply horrifying:
-Two Brothers by Brain Evenson (gory but fantastic writing)
-The Father's Blessing by Mary Caponegro (super well written, but WTF)
-You Drive by Christine Schutt (WHY WHY WHY. incest for the sake of incest, seemingly?)
Just didn't get or particularly like:
-I'm Slavering by Sam Lipsyte
-Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
-Short Talks by Anne Carson
-Letters to Wendy's by Joe Wenderoth
Absolute favorites included:
-Sea Oak by George Saunders (had read this one before)
-Do Not Disturb by A.M. Homes (this one was SO GOOD. the language was so sharp! The story slayed me).
-The Old Dictionary by Lydia Davis (need to read more of her)
-Histories of the Undead by Kate Braverman (got Virginia Woolf vibes with the lovely stream of consciousness)
-When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine (had read before)
-All American by Diane Williams (so punchy and fierce! Wished it was longer)
-Tiny, Smiling Daddy by Mary Gaitskill (brilliant and heartbreaking. Need to read more of her work!)
-The Sound Gun by Matthew Derby (surreal and fun)
-Field Events by Rick Bass (a pleasant surprise, moving and lovely)
Also enjoyed:
-The Caretaker by Anthony Doerr (beautiful)
-The Paperhanger by William Gay (creepy and well done)
-X Number of Possibilities by Joanna Scott (intriguing)
Deeply horrifying:
-Two Brothers by Brain Evenson (gory but fantastic writing)
-The Father's Blessing by Mary Caponegro (super well written, but WTF)
-You Drive by Christine Schutt (WHY WHY WHY. incest for the sake of incest, seemingly?)
Just didn't get or particularly like:
-I'm Slavering by Sam Lipsyte
-Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
-Short Talks by Anne Carson
-Letters to Wendy's by Joe Wenderoth
May 30, 2022
Can't say enough about how much I love this anthology. The ever-reliable Ben Marcus really knows how to put a collection together. I'd already read quite a few of these stories but happily devoured them again. An essential text for any short story writer or lover of the form.
April 11, 2020
But the best was probably Field Events by Rick Bass.
Thought I also liked Scarliotti and the Sinkhole and Anne Carson. But do we sometimes mistake inaccessibility for brilliance?
Thought I also liked Scarliotti and the Sinkhole and Anne Carson. But do we sometimes mistake inaccessibility for brilliance?
July 11, 2024
“But we are somewhere else. We are always somewhere else. We are in the plangent earth. We are going up the road. We are standing on the roof of the world, facing off.”
-Dawn Raffel
-Dawn Raffel
September 14, 2024
some of these were excellent, others were terrible, some were just okay. many such cases.
December 1, 2020
My favorites in this anthology were: “The Caretaker” by Anthony Doerr; “I’m Slavering” by Sam Lipsyte; “The Paperhanger” by William Gay; “Two Brothers” by Brian Evenson; “Tiny, Smiling Daddy” by Mary Gaitskill; “Someone To Talk To” by Deborah Eisenberg; and “Field Events” by Rick Bass.
October 24, 2009
This was a really weak collection.
Stand-outs:
"Tiny, Smiling Daddy" by Mary Gaitskill (about a father/daughter relationship)
"X Number of Possibilites" by Joanna Scott (which I enjoyed for the beautiful, tight language of the prose)
"Short Talks" by Anne Carson (such poetry!)
"Letters to Wendy's" by Joe Wenderoth (this is a really humorous, absurd piece)
"The Caretaker" by Anthony Doerr (one of the longest in the collection, but it held me until the end)
One reviewer has mentioned the phrase "navel-gazing" in response to a lot of these stories, and I would agree. Some of these are all "oooohhh look at me I'm so post-modern weird" without much of a storyline.
In particular, Padgett Powell's and Brain Evenson's stories had me really confused/disgusted, and there's really only so much lack-of-plot and gore (respectively) that I can take.
I ended reading this collection with David Foster Wallace's exerpt from "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" and uh, he definitely got the "hideous" part right. I don't think I will be picking up that particular book if I want to get into his stuff, simply because some of the awful, horrible rhetoric involving rape and power over women that he employs so well? I've heard that shit in real life, and unless some other commentary is going to be made on it, I don't want to have to read it again-- although I do understand that sometimes it is helpful to simply put it down in print so those people who say that shit realize how awful and ridiculous it is.
Overall, this collection leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Stand-outs:
"Tiny, Smiling Daddy" by Mary Gaitskill (about a father/daughter relationship)
"X Number of Possibilites" by Joanna Scott (which I enjoyed for the beautiful, tight language of the prose)
"Short Talks" by Anne Carson (such poetry!)
"Letters to Wendy's" by Joe Wenderoth (this is a really humorous, absurd piece)
"The Caretaker" by Anthony Doerr (one of the longest in the collection, but it held me until the end)
One reviewer has mentioned the phrase "navel-gazing" in response to a lot of these stories, and I would agree. Some of these are all "oooohhh look at me I'm so post-modern weird" without much of a storyline.
In particular, Padgett Powell's and Brain Evenson's stories had me really confused/disgusted, and there's really only so much lack-of-plot and gore (respectively) that I can take.
I ended reading this collection with David Foster Wallace's exerpt from "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" and uh, he definitely got the "hideous" part right. I don't think I will be picking up that particular book if I want to get into his stuff, simply because some of the awful, horrible rhetoric involving rape and power over women that he employs so well? I've heard that shit in real life, and unless some other commentary is going to be made on it, I don't want to have to read it again-- although I do understand that sometimes it is helpful to simply put it down in print so those people who say that shit realize how awful and ridiculous it is.
Overall, this collection leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
May 28, 2010
I'll be teaching this anthology as my primary fiction text in an intro to creative writing course this fall. As far as introducing student who have had little exposure to contemporary fiction and also providing a myriad of examples for beginning writers to think about constructing stories, this is an excellent source. You get some more traditional methods (Jhumpa Lahiri, Mary Gaitskill) mixed with highly lyrical stories. the George Saunders, Brian Evenson, William and Rick Bass stories are likely to wake a few students up, and Mark Richard, Aimee Bender, Lydia Davis and Sam Lipsyte present tighter formed short pieces that provide nice opportunities for students to look closely at what unifies a story.
I see some pretty disappointed reviews here, but if you're looking to teach something other than Raymond Carver, something your students might actually engage with and feel liberated by, this is a good place to start. I like the intro. Stories should shut us up. Many of these stories have significant emotional weight and achieve that from a variety of angles. I suppose critics of this anthology would also criticize my teaching style, which emphasizes students finding their own direction. Well, good, be angry that workshops are cranking out writers who don't "cut it" in your eyes, your feeble myopic eyes.
I see some pretty disappointed reviews here, but if you're looking to teach something other than Raymond Carver, something your students might actually engage with and feel liberated by, this is a good place to start. I like the intro. Stories should shut us up. Many of these stories have significant emotional weight and achieve that from a variety of angles. I suppose critics of this anthology would also criticize my teaching style, which emphasizes students finding their own direction. Well, good, be angry that workshops are cranking out writers who don't "cut it" in your eyes, your feeble myopic eyes.
August 10, 2008
In which I discover my new favorite author of fiction, non comic-book division.
While doing research for the creative writing class I will be teaching this year, I came across several recommendations for a short story contained in this book titled, "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" by Wells Tower. I'm thinking pen name.
I bought the compilation and read the story on my walk home. Then I read it to Kristin because she was sick and in bed. It's about Vikings and longing for home and the things that make home a place we'd rather be than anywhere else in the world. The story trades back and forth between gut-busting laughter and beautiful introspection. I can't really say any more because I want you to discover this story for yourself. The review that I read misrepresented the story as a Viking story told by a Viking who sounds like a surfer dude. It's deeper than that.
While doing research for the creative writing class I will be teaching this year, I came across several recommendations for a short story contained in this book titled, "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" by Wells Tower. I'm thinking pen name.
I bought the compilation and read the story on my walk home. Then I read it to Kristin because she was sick and in bed. It's about Vikings and longing for home and the things that make home a place we'd rather be than anywhere else in the world. The story trades back and forth between gut-busting laughter and beautiful introspection. I can't really say any more because I want you to discover this story for yourself. The review that I read misrepresented the story as a Viking story told by a Viking who sounds like a surfer dude. It's deeper than that.
June 2, 2013
After finishing this book, I'm wondering what I've gotten myself into. I ordered this anthology as a textbook for a freshman composition class, based on the strength of the few stories I had already read and admired (William Gay's "The Paperhanger," Wells Tower's "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" and a few others). But now, after finishing the book, I think I may be in trouble. These stories are weird. Some of them are terrific-- I love George Saunders's darkly hilarious "Sea Oak" and Rick Bass's warm, lovely "Field Events"-- but others just didn't work for me. A lot of people seem to love Aimee Bender, but I just can't get on board that train; ditto David Foster Wallace. I hope my students are ready to cope with the zombies, Vikings, drug addicts, beached whales and other oddities in this collection. Maybe my students and I will both rise to the challenge.
Read
July 22, 2008Well, the first story I read was the A.M. Homes story. Very good. Others--Evenson (who I like, but have to work myself up to read), William Gay, Mary Caponegro--I'm not sure would be best for an undergrad intro to fiction writing class. I guess it depends on the class, but I'm afraid everyone would suddenly start writing bad gothic/horror stories. I haven't finished the entire collection yet, but I'm not feeling as excited about teaching with this book as I was when I started the Homes story, in the dim lights of a pre-Indiana Jones theatre. If anyone has used this book in class, let me know how it went.
April 10, 2019
I like to read short stories on my commute on the train to and from work. If it's short enough, I get some satisfaction of reading an entire story one way. Whoa! What an accomplishment before 10 a.m.! I did find some of these stories to be cringeworthy though and I wonder what shade of red my face turned as I was reading them. But there definitely were some gems I wish were a 1,000 pages long. They are: The Caretaker by Anthony Doeer, When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine by Jhumpa Lahiri, and Field Events by Rick Bass. So beautifully written and loved every minute of my commute while I was reading them.
March 30, 2007
One of the best anthologies I've read in a while. Some of the standout stories include "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" by Wells Tower, a quiet story about some reluctant barbarians who would rather sit around and talk about relationships than pillage and berserk, and "Sea Oak" by George Saunders, a disturbingly funny story about an old lady who comes back from the dead to tell her dysfunctional family what to do with their lives. If you've never given short fiction a chance, you should definitely try this book. This is definitely some of the best contemporary writing around.
July 20, 2012
There's a good variety here, and a generous mix of stories written by both female and male writers. However, I found that many of the protagonists featured in these stories were of the male voice -- I think the editor could have done a better job choosing stories that featured female characters. I read this book in my Intermediate Fiction class and it proved to be a wonderful, insightful read. We read it in conjunction with Making Shapely Fiction by Jerome Stern.
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