The 1996 Pushcart Prize XX: Best of the Small Presses [Hardcover]

Bill Henderson (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Pushcart Prize | Publication Date: November 1995

A highly honored annual anthology presents the most distinguished short stories, essays, and poetry published by the nation's small presses and magazines, offering a remarkably diverse group of talented writers, famous and obscure.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

America's small presses are strong, diverse, and vibrant, even more so than one might guess from this flagship compilation that in its 20th year is showing some signs of tired blood. The fiction tends to be very strong, particularly stories by Maxine Kumin, Charles Baxter, Don DeLillo, Alice Schell, Nora Cobb Keller, Eileen Pollack, Rick Moody, and Stephen Dobyns. While poems by Marilyn Chin, Linda Bierds, Dennis Simpson, Cyrus Cassells, Alberto Rios, Sandra McPherson, Galway Kinnell, and A.R. Ammons are all of the highest order, many others are blandly prosaic. Kinnell's pithy question to a Dickinson scholar, "Why not, first, try listening to her?" might also be directed to the poetry editors. The poor quality of works by Joyce Carol Oates, John Barth, John Updike, and Grace Paley and the exclusion of flash fiction, performance poetry, cyberpunk, or fantasy provide evidence that even the small press has an old boys and girls network. Although this is not the watershed anthology one might hope for, the pluses far outweigh the minuses. Recommended for public and academic libraries.?Jim Dwyer, California State Univ. Lib., Chico
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Marking the twentieth anniversary of the annual Pushcart Prize anthology, Henderson and his contributing editors have chosen a remarkable collection of the best small press poems, essays, and short fiction. Whether browsed or devoured, this fat treasure of a book offers marvelous reading at every turn, with more than 60 selections. The longest piece ever to run in the series is Rick Moody's incantatory novella about the spiritual lives of junkies, "The Ring of Brightest Angels around Heaven." There's a very personal reminiscence about the poet Elizabeth Bishop by Frank Bidart and Grace Paley's quirky recollection about the six days she spent in jail for civil disobedience. And then there are the numerous wonderful short stories by James Robison, Maxine Sheppard Williams, and Maxine Kumin, among others. Some unexpected pieces include short stories written by poets (e.g., "A Happy Vacancy," Stephen Dobyns) and passionate literary criticism from fiction writers (e.g., "Bad," Frederick Busch). What unites this collection is the consistently high quality of craftsmanship on display here. If you can buy only one "best of" anthology this year, buy this one. Joanne Wilkinson

Product Details

• Hardcover: 570 pages
• Publisher: Pushcart Pr (November 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0916366995
• ISBN-13: 978-0916366995
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.6 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,466,012 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)