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Title: The Best American Short Stories 2001 by Katrina Kenison, Barbara Kingsolver ISBN: 0395926882 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 10 October, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4
Rating: 4
Summary: Not experimental but worthwhile
Comment: Kingsolver's introduction is well worth reading (much more thoughtful than Sue Miller's to the newest edition of B.A.S.S.). As always the collection is inconsistent, but there are some real winners: "Servants of the Map" by Andrea Barrett is a tour de force of a narrative with enough ideas and subtleties for a short novel; Rick Bass's "The Fireman" is heartbreakingly compelling; and a pair of stories about married couples and fertility (Elizabeth Graver's "The Mourning Door" and Marisa Silver's "What I Saw From Where I Stood") provide insight and feeling into an oft-experienced situation. Some clunker stories, of course, and very little experimental fiction at all, probably not a surprise given that Kingsolver made the choices. One piece of experimentation is "Boys" by Rick Moody, a clever but ultimately annoying tale that purports to follow the lives of twin boys but manages to cling to overly familiar stereotypes of male behavior. The collection is worth a read.
Rating: 5
Summary: A TREASURE!
Comment: In her introduction to this estimable collection of short fiction, Barbara Kingsolver thanks the authors for "pieces of truth that moved me to a new understanding of the world."
I add my gratitude for 20 memorable stories, diverse in concept but united by excellence.
Arranged alphabetically by author, these tales are spare, one only four pages. All are vivified by rich narrative voices.
The opening story, "Servants Of The Map" by Andrea Barrett introduces a young 19th century surveyor struggling through the Himalayas. Ridiculed by other members of his party, he carries a small wooden trunk holding letters from his wife.
Powerful descriptions of the incapacitating cold bring chills, as does the gradual revelation that the surveyor is losing rational thought. Montana author Rick Bass imagines Kirby, a volunteer fireman so caught up in fighting fire that all else is tedium.
His marriage suffers, yet it is fire that saves this relationship. The couple's ennui, their disagreements pale beside the dangers he faces when there is a blaze. "As long as the city keeps burning," Kirby thinks, "they can avoid becoming weary and numb. Always, he leaves, is drawn away, and then returns, to a second chance."
It is Wales and D-Day once again in "Think Of England" by Peter Ho Davies. Sixteen-year-old Sarah works in a pub frequented by English soldiers who may use her.
Another unlucky in love is "Pinky," the corpulent hero in Claire Davis's "Labors Of The Heart."
For the first time in his forty plus years he falls in love. Can his affections ever be returned when he is categorized as "morbidly obese," and knows that "every movement, whether tying a shoe or climbing a short flight of stairs, becomes a labor of the heart?"
Texas writer Annette Sanford offers "Nobody Listens When I Talk," an engaging mini-portrait of a young girl who spends a summer growing up. The maturation of two brothers is lined in "Boys," a poignant cameo of family life by Rick Moody.
Bushels of laughter spark Trevanian's Basque-set story "The Apple Tree." Two village women, lifelong rivals, are next-door neighbors. While their original bone of contention had been which of them the village Romeo favored, (in truth, neither) they now square off for the fruit of an apple tree that sits on their boundary line.
When harvesting apples the women come face to face. Each picks faster and faster until one pulls a limb over to gather more fruit. When she releases the branch it hits the other woman, toppling her into a bed of leeks. Mud begins to fly.
Not only mud but verbal assaults as well: They were "Crying out every vilification that years of rivalry had stored up in their fertile imaginations, decorating one another's reputations with those biologically explicit calumnies for which the Basque language might have been specifically designed, were it not universally known that it was invented in heaven for use by the angels."
The Best American Short Stories 2001 is a treasure. Each story is a gem, but isn't that what treasures hold?
- Gail Cooke
Rating: 1
Summary: Practice what you preach, Katrina
Comment: I'm always on the look-out for a good short story - either for my own enjoyment or to use in my reading classes, or to recommend to a friend. So, every year, I buy "The Best American Short Stories." My anticipation grew as I read this year's introduction, "brevity is the soul of everything" Barbara Kingsolver adamantly insisted. Great! I thought. Some short short stories with punch. Humph! Kingsolver then proceeded to select a 43 page novella as her first choice. And it was down hill from there on in. Oh well, there's always next year!
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