Status Updates From Granta 97: Best of Young Am...

Dara Horn's 'Passover In New Orleans', set during the American Civil War, is another excellent short story. Perhaps this anthology isn't so patchy after all...?

Olga Grushin's 'Exile' in fabulous. It reminds of something from a 1980s Picador, if you know what I mean. So far the best short story in this patchy anthology, by miles.

There's no doubt Nell Freudenberger's 'Where East Meets West' (an elegy to her grandmother, so perhaps also more than a thinly veiled biographical essay) is an accomplished piece of writing. However, in my view it suffers from the same affliction that mars too many American short stories in that it has too many characters ranging over too much time and geography. If you want to write a family saga, write a novel.