Editor: Geraldine Brooks
Series Editor: Heidi Pitlor
Type: Short Story Collection
Genre: Fiction
Series: Yes yearly
Pages: 384
Copyright: 2011
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Rating: 3 out of 5
Summary: from Goodreads.
The Best American Series®
First, Best, and Best-Selling
The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected — and most popular — of its kind.
The Best American Short Stories 2011 includes
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Megan Mayhew Bergman, Jennifer Egan,
Nathan Englander, Allegra Goodman,
Ehud Havazelet, Rebecca Makkai, Steven Millhauser,
George Saunders, Mark Slouka, and others
Feelings:
I that the forward by Heidi Pitlor and the introduction by Geraldine Brooks were good. Geraldine Brooks points out that she feels that many of the short stories today deal with things in the home and don't move beyond that. She suggest that young writers go out and experience the world and then write because that increase in knowledge will show in their writing. She also points out that while there are many things happening outside of the US that they do not show up in many short stories. I agree that experience is an important part of writing and it can be hard to write outside of what we are comfortable with and know. Heidi Pitlor comes from a different point of view and says that she doesn't mind reading many stories about divorce and childhood trauma from parents separating because it is in some ways easy to do well. However, she does say:
"To my mind, at least in terms of content, you've got an advantage if you choose less familiar settings or characters or premises." (page xi)I guess what I take away from both the forward and the introduction is get out there and do something and stretch yourself a bit when you sit down to write.
Ceiling by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
from Granta
This is the story of a successful man who hears from an ex-girlfriend and it starts him thinking about his life. He isn't happy and he knows that is marriage is a shame at least from his side. This story wasn't dark and it was set in Africa and seemed to reflect the divide between the rich and the poor there. The story was well written but I didn't really enjoy reading it.
Housewifely Arts by Megan Mayhew Bergman
from One Story This story was about a single mother who drives nine hours to find her mother's African Gray parrot in the hope of hearing her mother's voice one last time. This story was also dark. I found that I enjoyed reading the story but I was looking for that glimpse of humanity that sees hope or brief happiness. Maybe her son had that but she didn't.
A Bridge Under Water by Tom Bissell
from Agni
An American couple is on their honeymoon in Italy and things don't go well. The story explores human relationships and the dynamics between people. I didn't really enjoy this story and felt like it was one character giving up who they were for the other person, which is something she was trying not to do was trying to be stronger than that.
Out of Body by Jennifer Egan
from Tin House
This story is about a college student that has tried to commit suicide and how his friends react to him and treat him once he rejoins the group. This felt like a pretty typical college drugs story with the added tension created from the fear of what the character might do because of his past suicide attempt.
Free Fruit for Young Widows by Nathan Englander
from The New Yorker
This is a story that takes place after World War II and looks at how one family is connected to a man who fought with the father. The son as he grows up learns the story of how the man became who he was and why his father does what he does for the man. I thought this story was well written and enjoyed reading it. However, it also had a dark side with very little if any hope.
La Vita Nuova by Allegra Goodman
from The New Yorker
This was the first story in the book at I really enjoyed reading. An art teacher brings her wedding dress to class and lets the students paint it after her boyfriend leaves her before the wedding. After the incident she is told the school will not be hiring her again for the next year. Over the summer she works as a nanny for one of her former students and forms a close relationship with the five-year-old.
Gurov in Manhattan by Ehud Havazelet
from TriQuarterly
An aging man reflects on his life and an immigrant in America through his dying German Shepard. This story was bleak throughout but had a glimmer of hope at the end even though the reader knows it is only temporary.
The Sleep by Caitlin Horrocks
from The Atlantic Fiction for Kindle
This was a very strange quirky story about a town in the far north that decides to hibernate through the winter rather than struggle with trying to stay warm, plowing the roads and getting to work. I didn't feel strongly about the story one way or another but it is a story that I keep thinking about as we enter the winter months.
Soldier of Fortune by Bret Anthony Johnston
from Glimmer Train
This is a coming of age story. However, it is told with a even hand that isn't overly emotional about the events. Josh does pretty much what he is told to do taking care of the dog next door while they deal with a family emergence. However, he grows curious as any young person would when the school is telling horror stories about the house where he is watching the dog.
Foster by Claire Keegan
from The New Yorker
This is the story of a young girl who goes to stay with an older relative of her mother's when her mother is due to have a baby. The story follows the girl while she stays with "the woman" and Kinsella. The story hints at the difference between her life with her mother and father from and how she keeps expecting something bad to happen. This story was much longer than the other stories included in the collection. I thought it was well composed.
The Dungeon Master by Sam Lipsyte
from The New Yorker
I really didn't like this story. It is about a group of high school students who play dungeons and dragons at the house of another student who has an older brother who acts as their dungeon master. The Dungeon Master doesn't give them the typical story where they are able to advance but seems to take joy in killing them off.
Peter Torrelli, Falling Apart by Rebecca Makkia
from Tin House
This story is about two friends/acquaintances from high school who found themselves to be the only gay boys there. Peter became a successful actor but had a slip and suddenly couldn't act anymore. Out of the comradery the narrator felt for Peter he gives him an opportunity to read at an art opening.
Property by Elizabeth McCracken
from Granta
This story looks at what we leave behind after death and how death can change a relationship and make us wonder about what our property means. The story was dark like the others in the collection but it was of a different kind of bleakness. I didn't really like the story.
Phantoms by Steven Millhauser
from McSweeney's
Written in case study form this story looks a town that has phantoms and what they mean to the inhabitants that live there. At first I found this story to be a little bit creepy and almost like a ghost story. In the end I had changed my mind and didn't feel that it was so much a ghost story as a expose of an exotic town.
Dog Bites by Ricardo Nuila
from McSweeney's
A father is continually diagnosing his young son with different problems, Syndrome X, the son refers to the different syndromes as. To me this felt like the story of an over indulgent father.
ID by Joyce Carol Oates
from The New Yorker
My attention was held while I was reading it. Once I finished the story I was left making assumptions about what happened and how the main character was going to deal with the after affects of it. The story was well crafted and enjoyable to read, however, I really don't like feeling depressed because of what I read and this short story had that effect.
To the Measures Fall by Richard Powers
from The New Yorker
Through the course of the narrator's life a book holds different meanings to her and reflects her life back to her. Another bleak story in the collection and not one of the ones I enjoyed the bleakness of.
The Call of Blood by Jess Row
from Harvard Review
Narrated by a Jamaican Irish man who is caring for a Korean with Alzheimer. The daughter, Hyunjee, and Kevin talk when she visits and this slowly progresses as the story continues. I really liked this story as it deals with were immigrant families fit in America and how the acclimate or don't. This is one of three stories it the collection that I really liked.
Escape from Spiderhead by George Saunders
from The New Yorker
The beginning of the story took me a bit to adjust and just figure out what was going on. Jeff is part of an experimental group that is testing drugs and how they affect the mind. The story is very enjoyable while dark. I really don't want to live in the world Saunders has created but at the same time I think wow this is fascinating.
The Here's Mask by Mark Slouka
from Harper's Magazine
A nine year old son learns of his father's dark past growing up in Czechoslovakia. The father immigrated to the US and married. He has two children and daughter and a son, who is narrating the story. In the middle of the night the son watches his father making flies for fishing. This is a story of growing up and learning about who are parents are.
The Best American Short Stories 2011 included about three short stories that I thought were really good. The other stories in the collection were just so so and made me wonder what was cut. Overall, the stories had a dark theme as though life is without hope or being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, I'm not sure this is really a reflection of how things are in the world, America, today or if these stories were just the ones that best reflected the world the editor saw.
I would recommend picking up this anthology for the stories La Vita Nuova by Allegra Goodman, The Call of Blood by Jess Row, and Escape from Spiderhead by George Saunders. These stories made the collection worth reading.
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