The Best American Short Stories 1996 (Hardcover)

by John Edgar Wideman (Editor), Katrina Kenison (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
When a great annual collection comes out, it's hard to know the reason why. Was there a bumper crop of high-quality stories, or was this year's guest editor especially gifted at winnowing out the good ones? Either way, the 2000 edition of The Best American Short Stories is a standout in a series that can be uneven. Its editor, E.L. Doctorow, seems to have a fondness for the "what if?" story, the kind of tale that posits an imagination-prodding question and then attempts to answer it. Nathan Englander's "The Gilgul of Park Avenue" asks: What if a WASPy financial analyst, riding in a cab one day, discovers to his surprise that he is irrevocably Jewish? In "The Ordinary Son," Ron Carlson asks: What if you are the only average person in a family of certifiable geniuses? And Allan Gurganus's "He's at the Office" asks: What if the quintessential postwar American working man were forced to retire? This last story is narrated by the man's grown son, who at the story's opening takes his dad for a walk. Though it's the present day, the father is still dressed in his full 1950s businessman regalia, including camel-hair overcoat and felt hat. The two walk by a teenager. "The boy smiled. 'Way bad look on you, guy.'"

My father, seeking interpretation, stared at me. I simply shook my head no. I could not explain Dad to himself in terms of tidal fashion trends. All I said was "I think he likes you."

The exchange typifies the writing showcased in this anthology: in these stories, again and again, we find a breakdown of human communication that is sprightly, humorous, and devastatingly complete. A few more of the terrific stories featured herein: Amy Bloom's "The Story," a goofy metafiction about a villainous divorcee; Geoffrey Becker's "Black Elvis," which tells of, well, a black Elvis; and Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Third and Final Continent," a story of an Indian man who moves to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Like the collection itself, Lahiri's story amasses a lovely, funny mood as it goes along. --Claire Dederer --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly
While some installments of this annual anthology could more accurately be titled The Best Short Stories Published by the New Yorker," many of this year's selections are culled from more obscure literary magazines, with a number of new voices standing alongside series regulars such as Joyce Carol Oates and Alice Adams. Among the more established writers, a standout is Jamaica Kincaid's "In Roseau," a tale of a girl who gets involved in an erotic triangle with a married couple. Two writers who have won critical acclaim without yet reaching the wide audience they deserve weigh in with very impressive pieces: Stuart Dybeck offers a surreal yet oddly coherent story of love, loss and Chinese food in "Paper Lantern"; while Melanie Rae Thon's "Xmas, Jamaica Plain" demonstrates her considerable gift for capturing a character's voice. Few of the new writers that Wideman includes hold their own against their better-known counterparts; an exception is Junot Diaz, whose "Ysrael" is a fierce and unblinking story of a disfigured boy who wears a mask and the other children determined to see beneath it. But other newer writers, such as Jason Brown and William Lychak, seem in their different ways to be prime examples of the sort of middle-of-the-road fiction produced by M.F.A. programs: dutifully well-crafted stories whose content is derivative and uninspired. Overall, this is an engaging collection, though one that provides scant evidence for the existence of a new generation of talented short story writers.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 363 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (November 6, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395752914
• ISBN-13: 978-0395752913
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,324,386 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #32 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( W ) > Wideman, John Edgar
  #41 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > African American > Wideman, John Edgar

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An average vintage this year...., November 19, 2000

By	J. G. Hancock "Idiot Consumer" (PNS, FL, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Best American Short Stories 2000 (The Best American Series) (Paperback)

Every November, I buy this anthology, several others, and two cases of beaujolais nouveau. Like the wine, the anthology is never bad, sometimes outstanding, but rarely mediocre. This year's book leans toward the mediocre, I think. Though it contains several excellent stories (Gautreaux, Gurganus, Ha Hin, ZZ Packer, and Annie Proulx), it also contains several that are closer to vignettes or character studies than actual stories, and one or two that are good stories but certainly not "the best". If this was an average vintage, I'd rank the 1997 (guest-edited by Annie Proulx) and 1999 (guest-edited by Any Tan) as the two latest outstanding vintages. In her foreward, Katrina Kenison says E.L. Doctorow was in the middle of a book tour as he read the submissions--perhaps that partly explains why the "O. Henry Awards" and "Best Short Stories from the South" collections this year, in my opinion, were better selected. Recommended, but not in the upper 33% of this anthology in the past 15 years. Then again, like wine, opinions vary--how else can you explain that the same wine store I visit has three brands of retsina?

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Always a treat, this year's is a good one!, October 22, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Best American Short Stories 2000 (The Best American Series) (Paperback)

I love the "Best American Short Stories" annual collections - if nothing else they let you catch up on all those issues of The New Yorker, Harpers, Atlantic, etc. you didn't buy! The quality of any given year, though, depends both on how good the material was and who the editor is - this year it's E.L. Doctorow and he does a great job (in terms of quality, sequencing, variety of styles - even the short introduction is a nice read). If there's a flaw it's an overreliance on well-established authors (Amy Bloom, Walter Mosley, Jhumpa Lahiri, even Raymond Carver(!)) - I don't know if all these are really up to snuff, but the overall quality is right up there and you can't beat the price. Reader Alert: In my humble opinion, the two best stories appears towards the end: ZZ Packer's "Brownies" - a parable about race and growing-up that's a bit reminicent of, dare I say, Ralph Ellison. And Ha Jin's "The Bridegroom" - a thought provocing morality play about politics of all types. Not to be missed!

A bonus in the authors' notes appendix lets the authors comment on their stories or writing in general.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A choice compilation, October 23, 2000

By	R. Rodgers "grimcarnage" (United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Best American Short Stories 2000 (The Best American Series) (Paperback)

This years "Americas Best Short Stories" is an interesting mix of humor, wit and drama. While many books of this series in the past have had a "hit or miss" quality, every story in this book has, at its core, strong charachters and a believable narrative. Among my favorites would be "The Beautiful Days" aboout a young man who comes to grips with his own vision of self, and how it can change due to the manipulations of others and "Black Elvis", an interesting short that comes to life with vivid charachterization and realistic dialouge. If you are looking for a variety of quality short fiction, you can't go wrong with this book.